NPR Sunday Puzzle (Feb 24, 2013): Body Parts and Kind of Doctor Puzzle

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Feb 24, 2013): Body Parts and Kind of Doctor Puzzle:

Q: Name two parts of the human body, 10 letters in all. Place their names one after the other. Take a block of three consecutive letters out of the second word and insert them somewhere inside the first word without otherwise changing the order of any of the letters. The result will name a kind of doctor. What kind of doctor is it?

I'm afraid I don't have the answer yet. I've been fixated on trying to make wrist, waist or chest work to create an -ist word. Perhaps it isn't a conventional doctor but is something else? Reminds me of our Halloween theme several years back.

Edit: Shortly after I posted I figured out that Will was looking for an adjective, not a noun. And as suspected, it wasn't a traditional human medical doctor.

A: VEIN + ARTERY = VETERINARY

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Feb 17, 2013): The Cat is Away

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Feb 17, 2013): The Cat is Away:

Since I'm not going to be around to comment on the puzzle, I'm putting this week's puzzle on "auto-pilot". Please play nicely and don't give the puzzle answer away.

Here's my standard reminder... don't post the answer or any hints that could lead directly to the answer (e.g. via Google or Bing) before the deadline of Thursday at 3pm ET. If you know the answer, click the link and submit it to NPR, but don't give it away here.

You may provide indirect hints to the answer to show you know it, but make sure they don't give the answer away. You can openly discuss your hints and the answer after the Thursday deadline. Thank you.

A: POLICE ACADEMY --> POLIE AADEMY

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Feb 10, 2013): Foreign President Puzzle

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Feb 10, 2013): Foreign President Puzzle:

Q: Take the last name of a former president of a foreign country, someone well-known. Change the last letter of this name to an O and rearrange the result. You'll get the last name of someone who wanted to be president of the United States. Who are these two people?

I would have gotten to the puzzle sooner, but the cable modem was on the blink. My hint? The first names have the same number of letters and the middle names almost have the same number of letters.

Edit: Another way to say something is "on the blink" is to say it is "on the fritz". Walter F. Mondale went by the nickname Fritz.

A: (Nelson) MANDELA --> (Walter) MONDALE

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Feb 3, 2013): Famous Authors Puzzle XLVII

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Feb 3, 2013): Famous Authors Puzzle XLVII:

Q: Name a famous author, first and last names. Change an X in this name to a B, and rearrange all the letters. The result is how this author might address a memo to the author's most famous character. Who is it?

That's silly, J.K. Rowlings name doesn't even contain an X!

Edit: Silly is a reference to the Trix Rabbit which is both a hint to the author's first name (BeaTRIX) and her famous character (Peter RABBIT). J.K. Rowlings' famous character is Harry Potter, a hint to the author's last name.

A: BEATRIX POTTER --> TO PETER RABBIT

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Jan 27, 2013): Move your Body Parts

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Jan 27, 2013): Move your Body Parts:

Q: Name a personal mode of transportation. Remove its first and sixth letters. What remains — in sequence, without rearranging any letters — will spell the names of two parts of the human body. What are they?

Sorry, I'm a little distracted; I just read that Jeopardy champ Ken is saying that Chimborazo is the highest point on earth.

Edit: My clues hinted at Everest and Jennings. Harry Jennings and his disabled friend Herbert Everest, both mechanical engineers, invented the first lightweight, steel, collapsible wheelchair in 1933 and went on to become the first mass-manufacturers of wheelchairs.

A: WHEELCHAIR --> HEEL, HAIR

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Jan 20, 2013): World Leader Puzzle

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Jan 20, 2013): World Leader Puzzle:

Q: Take the last name of a famous world leader of the past. Rearrange those letters to name a type of world leader, like czar or prime minister. What world leader is it?

I must be getting old as this puzzle took me longer than expected. My muddy thinking had me trying to make STALIN and SULTAN work, or LEAR and EARL.

Edit: The first clue was "...gettinG OLD As..." which hides the leader's first name. My second clue was muddy which hinted at MIRE as an anagram of both answers.

A: Golda MEIR --> EMIR

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Jan 13, 2013): ABCDEF + two more

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Jan 13, 2013): ABCDEF + two more:

Q: Think of two familiar, unhyphenated, eight-letter words that contain the letters A, B, C, D, E and F, plus two others, in any order. What words are these?

The trick to all these puzzles is... well, I'll let you figure it out and add your comments below.

Edit: The first hint can be found by reading the last letters in the initial words in my post: ThE tricK tO alL.... The letter pairs EK and OL are what you need to add to ABCDEF to make the new words. The obvious other clue was the word comments (feedback) in bold (boldface).

A: FEEDBACK and BOLDFACE

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Jan 6, 2013): Sam Loyd Puzzle (16 boxes, 10 markers)

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Jan 6, 2013): Sam Loyd Puzzle (16 boxes, 10 markers):

Q: This challenge appeared in a puzzle column in the Woman's Home Companion in January 1913, exactly 100 years ago. Draw a square that is four boxes by four boxes per side, containing altogether 16 small boxes and 18 lines (across, down and diagonal). There are 10 ways to have four boxes in a line — four horizontal rows, four vertical columns, plus the two long diagonals. There are also eight other shorter diagonals of two or three squares each. The object is to place markers in 10 of the boxes so that as many of the lines as possible have either two or four markers. What is the maximum number of lines that can have either two or four markers, and how do you do it?

Sorry, I needed my full 8 hours of sleep so wasn't able to post earlier, but I'm awake now. No doubt people are going to find this a tricky puzzle, so I added a diagram to help out. Apart from reflections or rotations, I've found a single solution that maximizes the number of lines. Please don't mention how many lines are involved until after the deadline. For those that are mathematically inclined, there are 8008 ways to place 10 markers into 16 squares and, accounting for symmetry, it shouldn't be too hard to brute force the answer. :)

Edit: My hints above were to the number of lines being 16. Being asleep for 8 hours leaves 16 waking hours. The group "No Doubt" has a song called "Sixteen" on their album "Tragic Kingdom". Also the reference to the number of possible arrangements (8008) hinted at 8 horizontal/vertical lines and 8 diagonal lines. Finally, in a post I mentioned the Beatles' song "Taxman" which was parodied by Weird Al as "Pac Man"... I think the answer looks like Pac Man eating a dot.

A: 16 lines in one of 4 symmetric arrangements:
Solution A: 1, 3, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15
Solution B: 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 14, 16
Solution C: 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 11, 12, 13, 15
Solution D: 2, 4, 5, 6, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Dec 30, 2012): U.S. Four Cities Tour

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Dec 30, 2012): U.S. Four Cities Tour:

Q: First, name a U.S. state capital. Rearrange its letters to spell the name of another American city. Remove one letter and read the result backward to spell a third American city. Finally, move the first letter of that to the end to spell a fourth American city. The cities are in four different states. What are they?

You guys are so good at this that I don't think you need a clue. But if you have solved it, you'll notice the state names have something in common. On an unrelated note, I like how RALEIGH (North Carolina) anagrams into HAIR GEL (or LEG HAIR). :)

Edit: "guys" is a synonym of "males" which is an anagram of the first two cities. And all the states start with vowels.

A: SALEM (Oregon), SELMA (Alabama), AMES (Iowa), MESA (Arizona)

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Dec 23, 2012): Actor, Artist, God

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Dec 23, 2012): Actor, Artist, God:

A: Take the last name of a famous actor. Drop the first letter, and you'll get the last name of a famous artist. Drop the first letter again, and you'll get the name of a god in classical mythology. What names are these?

I thought the puzzle deadline would be a day earlier this week, but it isn't so this comment can be mostly ignored.

Edit: The first hint is Wednesday (day earlier) which is named after the Norse god Woden/Odin. Additionally, if you ignore one letter in "ignored" it anagrams to the name of the actor.

A: GRODIN --> RODIN --> ODIN