A thief is convicted in Mexico. He gets the death penalty. The judge allows him to say the last sentence to determine how the penalty will be carried out. If the thief lies, he will be hanged, if he speaks the truth he will be beheaded. The thief tells the last sentence and to everybody's surprise some minutes later he is set free because the judge cannot determine his penalty. What did the thief say?
Once upon a time, there was a castle on a square island. The entire island was surrounded by a 14m wide trench. The Romans had wanted to invade the castle and had brought a few wooden planks along with them to facilitate themselves in crossing the moat. The planks were however found to be only 13m long.
The Romans still managed to cross the trench. How did they do it?
A pregnant woman is preparing to name her seventh child. Her children's names so far are Dominique, Regis, Michelle, Fawn, Sophie, and Lara. What will she name her next child -- Jessica, Katie, Abby or Tilly?
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.
