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Your Proofness: Mahim Maher Hamza Master Storyteller: Ameer Am Creativity Analysts: Amna Am Iqbal, Essa Malik, Jamal Khurshid, Maha Haider, Shahid, Faizan Dawood, Anam Haleem, Umar Waqas Samra Aamir, Kiran Sha

THE EXPRESS TRIBUNE, APRIL 21, 2013

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They roamed through forests, stomped through swamps, and dashed across dry deserts. Some munched leafy greens while others devoured raw meat. They lived on the earth for millions of years – then disappeared! Who were they? Dinosaurs!

You’ve probably seen them in movies and books. In fact Jurassic Park was just re-released in 3D, if you haven’t watched it yet, now is a great time!

Hundreds of different kinds of dinosaurs lived all over the Earth. They came in all sizes. Some were only a little heavier than chickens. Others were as tall as a five-storey building!

The word dinosaur means ‘terrible lizard’. In fact, the first dinosaur ever named was the Megalosaurus – ‘great lizard’. Lizards are reptiles, and so were dinosaurs. A reptile is an animal with scaly skin or a hard shell covering its body. Reptiles lay eggs and usually have claws. Let’s step back in time, to when the ‘terrible lizards’ ruled the Earth.

What do you call a dinosaur that never gives up? Try-Try-Try-ceratops!

Have you ever wondered how dinosaurs get their names? Well, most fossil finders try to use names that describe what they have found, but the scientific names are usually in Greek and mean very little to anyone except the scientists. Most names come from the places where fossil was found, those who found them, the people who paid for the expeditions, or the names of gods, soldiers, and myths. For example, the Drinker dinosaur was name after a palaeontologist named Edward Drinker Cope, while the Tyrannosaurus rex’s name translates to ‘tyrant lizard’. Some dinosaurs are even named after their distinguishing features, like the Triceratops, which had three horns. Tri means ‘three’, and the rest of the name comes from Greek words that mean ‘horn’ and ‘face’. If you found a dinosaur, what would you name it?

DESIGN: JAMAL KHURSHID \ SAMRA AAMIR

THE EXPRESS TRIBUNE, APRIL 21, 2013

What’s better than a talking dinosaur? A spelling bee!

What if we told you that dinosaurs never went extinct? Not even a little bit. It’s kind of mind blowing really. Scientists say that birds are related to the dinosaur family. Do you know what and where your collarbones are? They are the two bones that help attach your arms to the middle of your body, and they are found right under the collar of your shirt. The Archaeopteryx (try saying that three times!) was a combination of a bird and a dinosaur that had teeth like a reptile, but his collarbone was joined together to form a wishbone, like the birds of today. Some of the dinosaurs that shared this trait were the Oviraptor, Velociraptor and Tyrannosaurus rex.

What do you call a blind Dinosaur? Do-ya-think-he-saurus.

Did you know that over 20 million years ago, the largest land mammal in the world roamed around the hills of Balochistan? The plant-eating Baluchitherium was around 18 feet tall and weighed approximately 12 tons (that’s 12 cars!). It was a relative of the rhinoceros, belonging to a family of hornless rhinos, but had a giraffe-like lifestyle, feeding on the leaves of trees. Its skin was so tough that even the sabre-toothed tiger, who lived in the same period, was unable to pierce it!

Which dinosaur slept all day?

The dino-snore!

What makes more noise than a dinosaur? Two dinosaurs!

Now you must be wondering, were they smart creatures? The smartest dinosaur was the Troodon. It was a human-sized dinosaur which lived in the Cretaceous period.

With big eyes, fast speed, and great vision – scientists believe that this dino must have had an especially big brain. But wait! They think that the Troodon was only about as smart as a modern possum.

But for a dinosaur, that was pretty smart! The award for the dumbest dinosaur goes to the Stegosaurus!

It had a brain as big as a walnut in a body weighing nearly two tons, that’s the weight of two cars!

It’s hard to imagine how big some of the dinosaurs really were.

Some dinosaur footprints that have been found are so big that you and a couple of friends could stand in one of them. The Tyrannosaurus rex’s teeth were as big as your toothbrush, more than 7 inches long! How many tubes of toothpaste would it take to brush this monster’s teeth? The Deinocheirus was so big, its arms and hands together were 9 feet long.

Since that was all scientists ever found of this dinosaur, it makes you wonder how much bigger the rest of it was.

What extinct animal would you like to see alive in the world today?

Feel free to send us an email at hifive@tribune.com.pk

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THE EXPRESS TRIBUNE, APRIL 21, 2013

4 : d e d e e n s e i l p p Su Card Sheet Hole puncher Ribbon Glue

Make Your Own Gift Bag! ToffeeTV.com’s Ayesha Mehmood teaches you how to make your own gift bags to make your presents even more presentable!

Instructions: There are two parts to making a gift bag: first is the bag itself, which you can make from a card sheet or simple paper, and then you have the decorations on top. We’ll start with the decorations first!

First, take a small card sheet, and draw a stencil of a flower. Create a pattern as shown in image 2, with the help of a hole-punching machine. This becomes your decoration. You can create different sizes and shapes as you would like them to be!

Then we move on to the bag itself. Take a sheet or paper or card piece about 15” long and 10” wide.

First, place the sheet in landscape form, and fold the upper and bottom to meet in the middle.

Next, fold the sheet about three-quarters of the way, from right to left.

This can be seen in image 4.

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Then open up the folds, and create four diagonal markings on the top and bottom folds, from the centre outwards, leaving a 3-inch gap in the middle.

This gap is the base of the bag.

Next, use glue to paste both the folds, but do not glue the space inside the diagonal lines. You need to create creases for the base on both sides of this middle space you have left. Also crease along the diagonal lines.

Go ahead and glue your decorations on to the bag. Next, you can create handles using ribbon and decorate it as you like. If you like, also give a top designed border so the handle can become stronger.

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Your gift bag is all set and ready to be given away! Easy wasn’t it?

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Do you have any craft ideas? Drop us an email at hifive@tribune.com.pk

THE EXPRESS TRIBUNE, APRIL 21, 2013

Get your weekly dose of the unusual and funny from across the globe!

Cheekyy Monkeys o eys A pair of cheeky monkeys lived up to their reputation for causing trouble when they playfully attacked d two wildlife park employees dressed in panda suits. The bothersome duo were snapped bullying g their human supervisors after ganging up on them at the scenic Emei Mountain wildlife refuge in south-west China’s Sichuan Province. Having dressed up as the black and white bears to entertain the tourists visiting the park, it seems the monkeys weren’t as impressed. The men were bombarded by the monkeys, who appeared to enjoy their moment in the spotlight as they pulled and tugged at the costumes seemingly intent on revealing the pair’s true human identities. Both sides eventually seemed to calm down following the playful teasing and later posed for pictures together for amused visitors. NEWS.OPODO.CO.UK

Sticky Fingers g A pickpocket was photographed stealing from a cyclist in down-town Zhengzhou, China, byy grabbing the cyclist’s phone with a pair of chopsticks.

Wang Hongbo, 32, was captured on camera lifting the phone from m a woman’s pocket as she cycled unaware through Zhengzhou in China’s Henan province. He was snapped chasing the oblivious cyclist down a busy street before cleverly extracting the handset using the chopsticks. The thief was later seen examining his ill-gotten goods before selling the phone in a nearby second hand shop. He was caught out when a passer-by, who photographed the whole incident unfolding, posted the pictures online. Hongbo eventually handed himself to the police after his picture was widely circulated on the internet and in print. THESUN.CO.UK

World wide weird

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Catch that snitch!

From fiction to reality , Quidditch, the game which pitched the rival houses of Harry Potter’s school for wizards against each other in aerial combat, is now a global sport. And just eight years after its rules were devised by two bored university room-mates, the sixth Quidditch World Cup has been held in Kissimmee, Florida.

More than 1,600 players took part, bringing together 80 of the hundreds of teams now found across campuses in North America, Europe and Australia. Players, who pay hundreds of pounds for top-of-the-range gear, must, of course, ‘ride’ on a broomstick as they battle to throw quaffles through ringed hoops to score points or chase the snitch to end the game. One thing still remains the stuff of fantasy. Despite the advances in equipment — in the game’s infancy, a dustbin lid would often suffice for a target — no one yet has a broomstick that actually flies. METRO.CO.UK

A ppassing g experience p

Pull up those e pants!

The US state of Louisiana’s Terrebonne Parish has made de it illegal to wear baggy trousers and will force those e doing so to pay penalties in the future. Anyone caught for the first time will have to pay a $50 (Rs5,000) fine, do it again and it’s $100 (Rs10,000) and a third offence will cost you $100 plus 16 hours of communityy service. Any contraventionss after that then you are at the mercy of a judge. MSNNOW W

There’s nothing like dying to get a fresh perspective on life, at least that’s what one 22-yearold recently learned. In a theatrical act of soul-searching, Chinese student, Zeng Jia, staged her own funeral in Wuhan, central China’s Hubei province.

“I feel so good after coming out of the coffin,” Zeng told the local news. The inspiration for the fictional funeral came from an epiphany she had about burial ceremonies after her grandfather’s recent death.

“It struck me that people spend all that time and effort on someone when they are gone and they cannot appreciate it,” she said.

According to the newspapers, she hired a team of cosmetic artists to make her look dead, yet alive. Zeng laid in the coffin for an hour while mourners walked past paying their tributes, and no, they weren’t rented.

Whether or not mourners were aware it was a pseudo-funeral, it was clear by the end of the wake when she jumped out of the coffin and delivered a speech. HUFFINGTONPOST.COM

THE EXPRESS TRIBUNE, APRIL 21, 2013

Did you know?

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s n i g i r O d r o W Ever wonder why the toilet is also often called ‘The Crapper’.

It all started with US soldiers stationed in England during the First World War. The toilets in England at the time were made by the company “Thomas Crapper & Co Ltd”, with the company’s name appearing on the toilets. The soldiers took to calling toilets “The Crapper” and brought that slang term for the toilet back with them to the United States.

Interestingly, the word “crap” does not derive from “Crapper”. The origins of the word “crap” is not entirely known, but it is known that it was commonly used in England to refer to rubbish or chaff, but fell out of use in the 16th century, long before Thomas Crapper and his company came along.

How to say ‘one language is never enough’ in different languages Afrikaans Armenian Basque Catalan Croatian Danish Dutch Esperanto French Galician German Haitian Creole Hungarian Indonesian Italian Japanese Klingon Korean Latin Latvian Lithuanian Malay Spanish

: : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : :

Een taal is nooit genoeg nie Meg lezoon puhnav hereek che Hizkuntza bat ez da inoiz nahikoa No n’hi ha prou amb una llengua Jedan jezik nikad nije dovoljan Ét sprog er aldrig nok Eén taal is nooit genoeg Unu lingvo neniam sufi as Une seule langue n’est jamais suffisante Unha lingua non chega Eine Sprache ist niemals genug Yon sèl lang se janm ase Egy nyelv sosem elég Satu bahasa tidak pernah cukup Una sola lingua non è mai abbastanza Gengo o hitotsu wa kesshite tarinai Not yap wa’ Hol Han gaji un u nun chung boon ha ji mot hae Una lingua numquam satis est Ar vienu valodu nekad nepietiek Vienos kalbos niekada negana Satu bahasa tidak pernah cukup Un idioma nunca es suficiente

Cool facts The word “lethologica” describes the state of not being able to remember the word you want.

A word or sentence that is the same front and back (racecar, kayak) is called a “palindrome”.

You share your birthday with at least 9 million other people in the world.

Every year 4 people in the UK die putting their trousers on.

Cats have over one hundred vocal sounds; dogs only have about ten.

Our eyes are always the same size from birth but our nose and ears never stop growing.

There is actually no danger in swimming right after you eat, though it may feel uncomfortable.

The cruise liner Queen Elizabeth II moves only six inches for each gallon of diesel that it burns.

No word in the English language rhymes with month, orange, silver, or purple.

THE EXPRESS TRIBUNE, APRIL 21, 2013

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Fun & games

The Queen of Cranes

By Kiran H Mian

Time passed quickly and soon Zal’s fifteenth birthday approached.

No one knew of a boy who was lovelier, nicer, or more intelligent than Zal. On this occasion, his parents decided to buy a unique gift for their unique son. Gathering their meagre savings, they hired the most talented silversmith in the land. It took the smith months to prepare a charm that met the proud parents’ satisfaction; but when it was finally ready, it truly was worthy of Zal! The mother filled the talisman with the small pieces that she had saved from the magical pearl. In the morning when they presented it to Zal, he instantly fell in love with it and insisted on showing it off to his friends; and how could his proud parents refuse?

In the afternoon when Zal finished his homework, he donned his fanciest shalwar kameeze and skipped towards the village. As he skipped, the charm bounced around his neck, glistening in the bright sunlight. This was enough to entice the thirsty monster to come out, for the temptation to own such a pretty object was too much for her.

“How preeeetty!! How fiiiiiiine it will looook on my lovvvvely neck!”

With this, the she-demon made a dive towards Zal and, with her strong talons, grabbed the charm from his neck. Poor Zal knew not what to do, but he chased the thief as quickly as his feet could carry him. He chased the demon over the mountains and across the plains. The chase lasted for weeks, but Zal did not stop. It was only when he lost sight of the demon that he realised that he was now lost. What was worse was that he was lost in a neverending desert! There was nothing but sand, rocks, and jaggy cliffs in sight. Poor Zal did not know what to do. Feeling helpless, he flopped onto a huge boulder nearby and began to cry.

“What’s wrong, young boy?” he heard a voice ask. Zal quickly

and the Magical Pearl

searched the area around him but only saw a small gecko hiding in the cracks of the boulder. Just when he was about to start crying again, he heard the same voice say “Don’t cry”. This time, Zal knew it had to be the gecko, for there was no one nearby; but he was finding it hard to believe.

“Yes! Yes! A talking gecko! And you know what? We do talk quite a bit!” said the gecko, as if reading Zal’s thoughts. But having been lonely for so long, Zal needed no further explanation and began to narrate his story! Although the poor gecko was in a hurry, he listened attentively, his wide eyes rolling and his tail standing alert.

Master Nam was the name of the friendly yellow gecko. When the story finished, Master Nam, taking a liking to Zal, invited him to his secret ancestral garden. Once again, Zal found it hard to believe that there was a garden in this hot, dry desert, but Nam insisted and Zal agreed to follow him.

After many turns and climbing over many cliffs, they finally arrived at the secret garden. At first, the garden’s residents protested; the birds and other creatures were not happy to see Zal. They had suffered very badly at the hands of humans. All the birds that came from far-off lands had dealt with humans taking over their homes, shooting them down during their migration, and cutting down precious trees and plants—their main source of food. Now, to see such a human in their secret garden angered them.

“How could you bring him to OUR garden?” screeched the angry lady eagle, for she had just lost her husband to a hunting squad.

Master Nam did not know what to say, for he knew they were right; humans had caused much havoc in their lives. But things had to change. After a long debate, the birds finally gave in and allowed Zal to stay. It did not take long for Zal to settle down and win new friends, and soon the birds began to trust him.

Part 2 To be continued next week...

THE EXPRESS TRIBUNE, APRIL 21, 2013

Comic strip

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