The Longest Pregnancy

A baby was born four years after its parents died in a car crash. How was this possible?

Amazingly, this actually happened. The parents died in a crash crash and their parents fought for the rights to the four frozen embryos left by their late children. After a surrogate pregnancy, the baby was born with DNA matching their deceased parents.

Posted in Brain Teasers

I Can Ruin a Lucky Run

I can ruin a lucky run,
Or create an item of wealth,
But for man, woman or child,
I’ll always steal your health.

What am I?

Die. The roll of a die can ruin a game of chance. A die (i.e. mold) is used to create new coins and so far at least, we all die.

Posted in Riddles
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Crawl on the Earth, Rise on Pillar

I crawl on the earth and rise on a pillar.

What am I?

A shadow.

Posted in Riddles

Planting Trees on Arbor Day

On Arbor Day the fourth grade class began planting trees. They finished planting five trees before the fifth grade class arrived. But they accidentally planted them on the fifth grade side of the street.

The fourth-graders crossed the street to start over, and the fifth-graders planted the remaining trees. They finished first and felt bad for the fourth-graders, so they crossed the street and planted five trees. They planted another five trees at which point all of the trees had been planted.

By how many trees were the fifth-graders ahead of the fourth-graders?

Ten. The fifth-graders planted five more trees than they were assigned, and the fourth-graders planted five fewer than their assignment.

Posted in Brain Teasers

Four Gallons From Two Buckets

You have two buckets. One holds exactly five gallons and the other three gallons. How can you measure exactly four gallons of water into the five gallon bucket?

Assume you have an unlimited supply of water and that there are no measurement markings of any kind on the buckets.

  1. Fill the 3-gallon bucket.
  2. Pour the 3 gallons of water into the 5-gallon bucket
  3. Fill the 3-gallon bucket again.
  4. Fill up the 5-gallon bucket with the 3-gallon bucket, leaving you with 1 gallon left in the 3-gallon bucket.
  5. Empty out the 5-gallon bucket.
  6. Pour the remaining 1 gallon of water from the 3-gallon bucket into the 5-gallon bucket.
  7. Fill the 3-gallon bucket.
  8. Pour the 3 gallons of water from the 3-gallon bucket into the 5-gallon bucket leaving you with 4 gallons of water in the 5-gallon bucket.

Alternate solution:

  1. Fill up the 5 gallon bucket
  2. Pour it into 3 gallon bucket, leaving 2 gallons
  3. Empty out the 3 gallon bucket
  4. Pour the 2 gallons in the 5 gallon bucket into the 3 gallon bucket
  5. Fill up the 5 gallon bucket and pour it into the 3 gallon bucket until it’s full, leaving 4 gallons in the 5 gallon bucket.
Posted in Brain Teasers

If I’m Ever Gone, Beware

Sometimes you’ll find me hard and cold,
Other times I’m hard to hold,
Always present in the air,
If I’m ever gone, beware.

What am I?

Water. As ice I’m hard and cold, as water vapor I’m hard to hold and I’m always present in the air as humidity (aka water vapor). If the earth ever runs out of water, we’re toast.

Posted in Riddles

Anyone Can Take It

Anyone can take it as long as it’s on someone.

Pity.

By Sef Daystrom

Posted in Riddles

Imprisoned In Wood and Never Released

I am taken from a mine and shut up in a wooden case from which I am never released. Yet I am used by almost everybody. What am I?

Pencil lead. While modern pencils don’t contain lead, that’s still what we call the graphite compound. When real lead was used in pencils it was mined and nearly everyone has used a pencil at some point in their life.

Posted in Riddles

What is the Five Digit Number?

What 5-digit number satisfies the following requirements?

1. No zeroes
2. First two digits are the same
3. Fourth digit is twice the first
4. Last digit is twice the third
5. Sum of all digits is 18

33264.

There are several ways of solving this. One way is to represent each spot with a letter, A – E.

Then you have these equations:

A = B
D = 2 * A
E = 2 * C
A + B + C + D + E = 18

By simplifying, you get:

4 * A + 3 * C = 18

Plug in values for A and C to find that A = 3 C = 2.

Posted in Brain Teasers

Answer This Honestly

What question can you never honestly answer yes to?

Are you asleep? (or dead, or conscious, or being silent).

Posted in Riddles