Make the Line Sorter

Birbal was jester, counsellor, and fool to the great Moghul emperor, Akbar.
The villagers loved to talk of Birbal's wisdom and cleverness,
and the emperor loved to try to outsmart him.
One day Akbar (emperor) drew a line across the floor.
"Birbal," he ordered, "you must make this line shorter, but you cannot erase any bit of it."
Everyone present thought the emperor had finally outsmarted Birbal.
It was clearly an impossible task.
Yet within moments the emperor and everyone else present had to agree that Birbal had made the line shorter without erasing any of it.
How could this be?




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Joseph:
Peter was in the 2nd bedroom.
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I agree with Joseph that David was in the bathroom and Peter was in the 2nd bedroom.
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Peter:
Mandy was in the kitchen with Christopher.
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David:
I still say Peter was in the 2nd bedroom and Jennifer was in the bathroom.
Joseph was in the 1st bedroom.

Jennifer:
Peter was in the bathroom with Christopher.
And Mandy was in the kitchen.

Christopher:
David was in the kitchen.
And I was in the 2nd bedroom with Peter.

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Gamers

In 2011, people playing Foldit, an online puzzle game about protein folding, resolved the structure of an enzyme that causes an Aids-like disease in monkeys. Researchers had been working on the problem for 13 years. The gamers solved it in three weeks.