Think You’re Clever? Solve These Mind-Bending Brain Teasers

Updated Oct 29, 2024 | 10:00 PM IST

SummaryIn today’s quiz, challenge yourself with some tricky brain teasers! These questions test your logical reasoning, knowledge of family relations, and number series skills. Give them a shot to see how sharp your brain really is!
Quiz- brain teaser questions

Quiz- brain teaser questions

If you’re a fan of brain teasers, puzzles, and logical riddles, then this quiz is for you. These aren’t just ordinary questions—they’ll require you to carefully analyze each clue and think through your answer. Such puzzles are excellent for enhancing problem-solving skills, boosting memory, and building a keen eye for detail.

Logical reasoning questions train your mind to recognize patterns and think in an organized way. Family relation puzzles make you focus on verbal reasoning and track connections, a skill that’s handy for understanding complex relationships. Number series puzzles, on the other hand, test your mathematical observation skills, helping improve speed and accuracy in pattern recognition.

Answer each question carefully, jot down your ideas, and don’t peek at the answers until you’ve tried them all!

1) A man is looking at a photo of someone. His friend asks him, “Who are you looking at?” The man replies, “Brothers and sisters, I have none. But the father of that person in the photo is my father’s son.” Who is in the photo?

2) John’s mother’s sister’s only brother-in-law is married to Claire’s mother-in-law’s sister’s husband. What is the relationship between John and Claire?

3) Find the next number in the sequence:

2, 6, 12, 20, 30, 42, ___

4) Three people—Amy, Ben, and Chris—are in a room. They each have a different favorite fruit: apple, banana, and cherry. You know that:

- Amy does not like apples.

- Ben does not like cherries.

- Chris does not like bananas.

Who likes which fruit?

5) What is the next number in this pattern?

4, 9, 19, 39, 79, ___

6) A woman introduces a man to her friends, saying, “He is the son of my mother’s only daughter.” What is the man’s relationship to the woman?

Answers:

1) The person in the photo is the man’s son. Since he has no brothers or sisters, “my father’s son” refers to himself.

2) John and Claire are siblings. The connections point to the same family ties.

3) The next number is 56. Each number adds an incrementally increasing even number (2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, etc.).

4)

- Amy likes bananas.

- Ben likes apples.

- Chris likes cherries.

5) The next number is 159. Each number doubles and subtracts one (4*2-1=9, 9*2-1=19, etc.).

6) The man is the woman’s son, as her “mother’s only daughter” is herself.

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Persistent Nausea After Meals? For This Canadian Woman, It Was Not IBS — It Was Stage 4 Cancer

Updated Jul 17, 2025 | 11:00 PM IST

SummaryPersistent nausea after meals? Sudden changes in bowel habits? Pencil-thin stools? These are not just digestion issues. They are red flags. And no matter how old (or young) you are, they deserve more than a quick IBS label and a shrug. Shannin’s gut told her something was wrong, and it was. If you feel the same, do not wait.
Credits: Canva

When 26-year-old Shannin Pain from Kawartha Lakes, Canada, began experiencing persistent nausea after meals, along with sharp cramps and an inability to keep food down, she did what most of us would do: she went to the doctor. But instead of getting clarity, she got dismissed.

What followed was a frustrating tour of diagnoses that did not stick: IBS, coeliac disease, Crohn’s, even haemorrhoids. Everyone had a theory, except no one ordered the one test that could have saved her life: a colonoscopy.

I Knew Something Was Wrong

“I was told it was IBS or anxiety,” Shannin told the Express UK. But her gut literally was screaming that it was not normal. By October 2023, her symptoms had gone from uncomfortable to terrifying. Her bowel habits had changed drastically, her stool had become pencil-thin, and post-meal nausea was relentless.

And then came the pain. “I'd get these stabbing cramps in my lower left abdomen – so bad I couldn't breathe. I would double over, gasping, clutching my stomach. It felt like something was ripping through me.”

What makes her story especially heartbreaking is not just the physical suffering but how medical professionals repeatedly overlooked her pleas, perhaps because of her age; too young, they assumed, for something as “unlikely” as colorectal cancer.

The MRI That Changed Everything

In April 2024, after six months of worsening symptoms and no answers, doctors finally decided to order an MRI just to rule things out, according to the Express UK. Shannin never went home after that scan.

The MRI revealed a complete intestinal blockage. Emergency surgery followed, and when she woke up, she was hit with the words no one wants to hear: it was cancer.

Stage 4 colorectal cancer, to be precise. The tumour had blocked her colon, spread to her right ovary (a Krukenberg tumour), invaded 11 of 13 lymph nodes, and scattered across her peritoneum. Worse, her liver was so riddled with tumours that surgery was not an option.

Fighting for Her Life

Facing a terminal diagnosis, Shannin had to act fast. Doctors gave her a brutal choice: without chemotherapy, she had less than three months to live. With treatment, maybe three years.

But even in the face of such devastation, she fought for her future, freezing seven eggs in May 2024 before chemotherapy threatened her fertility.

She has now undergone 27 rounds of chemotherapy and is preparing for her 28th. Along the way, she has endured near-death anaphylactic reactions to the drugs and a relentless treatment schedule. And yet, amid it all, a tiny glimmer: her latest scan showed no new growths.

When Dismissal Is Deadly

Shannin’s story is not just about a rare and aggressive cancer. It is about how easy it is to miss something when symptoms are brushed off as “too common” or the patient “too young.”

Colorectal cancer is one of the most preventable and treatable cancers if it is caught early. But that requires one thing: being taken seriously. A colonoscopy is not a last resort. It is a simple test that could have changed Shannin’s trajectory, had it been done in time.

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US Surgeons Try Simpler Heart Transplant Methods to Boost Donor Pool

Updated Jul 17, 2025 | 09:00 PM IST

SummaryDoctors at Duke and Vanderbilt are pioneering simpler, less controversial methods to revive and preserve hearts after circulatory death, offering new hope for transplant patients, especially critically ill infants.
Credits: Canva

There is a quiet revolution happening in the world of heart transplants, and it is taking place in the operating rooms of Duke and Vanderbilt universities. These medical pioneers are rewriting the rulebook on how we preserve and recover hearts from donors whose hearts have already stopped beating, a scenario long deemed too tricky or controversial for transplant use.

The DCD Dilemma

Until recently, most donated hearts came from people declared brain-dead, with machines keeping their hearts beating while surgeons prepared for removal. But what about those who die because their heart stops, a situation known as donation after circulatory death (DCD)? That is where things get ethically and logistically complicated.

One method to recover DCD organs involves pumping blood and oxygen back into the chest and abdomen, minus the brain, in a controversial move known as normothermic regional perfusion (NRP). Some hospitals ban it altogether. Another option is hauling the heart in a machine that mimics the body and it works well but is pricey, complex, and just too bulky to support hearts small enough for infants. The problem is that the young children need these transplants the most.

A Beat of Hope

Dr. Joseph Turek and his team at Duke strip away the machines and the debates and go minimalist. After removing the donor heart, they hooked it up to a few tubes of oxygenated blood on a sterile table, a quick, clinical moment of resurrection. No fancy equipment. No artificial reanimation. Just a five-minute check to see if the heart could beat again and fill its arteries with life.

The approach, first tested on piglets, got its big debut when a 1-month-old donor’s family agreed to the procedure. The heart passed the quick test with flying colours: pink, pumping, and perfect. It was put on ice and flown to Duke, where a 3-month-old recipient was waiting.

Vanderbilt’s Cool Approach

Meanwhile, over at Vanderbilt, the team opted for something even simpler. Their technique involves cooling the heart and bathing it in a special preservative solution before removal, no reanimation needed. According to Vanderbilt lead author Dr. Aaron M. Williams, this "chill-and-ship" method replenishes nutrients lost during the dying process and protects the heart during transport.

“Our view is you don’t necessarily need to reanimate the heart,” Williams explained.

Why It Matters

Both of these techniques could open the door to using many more donor hearts that would otherwise be discarded, especially for infants and children whose options are tragically limited. With machines too large for tiny bodies and ethics keeping doctors from using existing methods, these new middle-ground strategies could be game-changers.

As reported by The Associated Press, these innovations challenge old assumptions about what is possible and what is not when a heart stops beating. And for those stuck waiting on transplant lists, these new methods might just mean the difference between more time... or time running out.

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Kerala Student Tests Positive For H1N1, 3 More Showing Symptoms -Top Signs And Symptoms To Note

Updated Jul 17, 2025 | 12:47 PM IST

SummaryA student in Kollam, Kerala tests positive for swine flu, one of the most contagious diseases in the world. As cases rise in India, here are the signs, symptoms and management.
Kerala Student Tests Positive For H1N1

A Class IX student in Kollam was diagnosed with H1N1 (swine flu) on Wednesday. Reports find that three other students from the same class were reporting fever-like symptoms since July 13 and are now being treated for similar symptoms. Currently, their test results are pending. The health officials will now be screening more students at the school.

H1N1 And Why It Is A Cause of Concern – Signs and Symptoms

H1N1 flu, also called "swine flu," is a very catching virus. It mostly affects your nose and throat, but can sometimes get into your lungs too. If you get H1N1, you might feel sick with things like:

  • A runny nose
  • Shivers
  • Achy muscles
  • Headache
  • Fever and chills
  • Loss of appetite

While it's often a mild illness, it can sometimes cause serious issues in your lungs or stomach. In rare cases, it can even lead to serious breathing trouble or other infections.

Also Read: 'Three-Parent-Baby' Technique: How UK Is Making Healthy Babies With DNA From Three People To Avoid Genetic Mitochondrial Disease

This type of flu became a worldwide problem because it was a new mix of pig, bird, and human flu viruses. It spread to millions of people and even affected businesses like food and tourism.

The best way to fight H1N1 is to get antiviral medicine early, within 72 hours of your symptoms starting. This can make the illness less severe and even save lives. Vaccines and other ways to prevent the flu are also super important to stop it from spreading.

If your doctor thinks you have H1N1, they'll test samples from your nose or throat to be sure. Getting the best care, especially for people who are at higher risk, often involves a team of different healthcare professionals working together.

The Rise Of Swine Flu And How It Spreads

The Centre of Disease Control and Prevention explains that swine flu is a highly contagious breathing illness that affect pigs. While it's uncommon for humans to catch swine flu from pigs, it can happen if they are in close contact with infected pigs or places where their viruses are present. Once a person gets infected, they can then spread the virus to other people, likely through coughing or sneezing, just like regular seasonal flu.

How Swine Flu Changes

CDC explains that just like the flu virus that affects people and birds, swine flu viruses are always changing. Pigs are unique because they can catch flu viruses not just from other pigs, but also from birds (avian flu) and people (human flu).

When different types of flu viruses infect a pig at the same time, they can mix and swap their genetic material. This is like shuffling a deck of cards. When they mix, brand new flu viruses can be created that are a combination of swine, human, or avian flu.

Over time, many different kinds of swine flu have appeared. Right now, in the United States, there are three main types of influenza A viruses found in pigs: H1N1, H1N2, and H3N2.

Treating H1N1 – Managing the Disease

According to Medscape, if you have H1N1 flu, the main goal of treatment is to help you feel better. This usually means resting a lot, drinking plenty of fluids, and taking medicines to calm your cough, lower your fever, and ease muscle aches (like Tylenol or ibuprofen). If someone gets very sick, they might need fluids given through a vein and other help from doctors. Sometimes, doctors might also give special antiviral medicines to treat the flu or to keep you from getting it if you've been exposed.

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