A boy collects white seashells from the sea and brings them home every night. When he has enough of them, he decides to sell them to a trader.
The trader is ready to buy the shells and he asks the boy about the quantity. At this, the boy starts calculating. He has a giant box that contains 3 mini boxes. Two of them have another mini box inside. If the giant box can hold 50 shells, how many brown shells can he sell to the trader?
Four people need to cross a rickety bridge at night. Unfortunately, they have only one torch and the bridge is too dangerous to cross without one. The bridge is only strong enough to support two people at a time. Not all people take the same time to cross the bridge. Times for each person: 1 min, 2 mins, 7 mins and 10 mins. What is the shortest time needed for all four of them to cross the bridge?
I came first on earth but second on the heaven.
I also came twice in a week but found just once in a year.
I stay away from months but you can find me in February.
Use the numbers 2, 3, 4 and 5 and the symbols + and = to make a true equation. Conditions: Each must be used exactly once and no other numbers or symbols can be used.
There are two beautiful yet remote islands in the South Pacific. The Islanders born on one island always tell the truth, and the Islanders from the other island always lie.
You are on one of the islands and meet three Islanders. You ask the first which island they are from in the most appropriate Polynesian tongue, and he indicates that the other two Islanders are from the same island. You ask the second Islander the same question, and he also indicates that the other two Islanders are from the same island.
Can you guess what the third Islander will answer to the same question?
John is on an island and there are three crates of fruit that have washed up in front of him. One crate contains only apples. One crate contains only oranges. The other crate contains both apples and oranges.
Each crate is labelled. One reads 'apples', one reads 'oranges', and one reads 'apples and oranges'. He know that NONE of the crates have been labeled correctly - they are all wrong.
If he can only take out and look at just one of the pieces of fruit from just one of the crates, how can he label all of the crates correctly?
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.