The Express Tribune hi five - January 10

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Your Proofness: Dilaira Dubash Master Storyteller: Hurmat Majid Creativity Analysts: Jamal Khurshid, Essa Malik, Talha Ahmed Khan, Mohsin Alam, Maryam Rashid, Hira Fareed, Nabeel Khan, Sobia Khan and Umar Waqas

THE EXPRESS TRIBUNE, JANUARY 10, 2016

Hi-light Hi light

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he Star Wars saga has come back to life as Disney has brought the first film of the sequal trilogy out under its banner. While seasoned actors like Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher are reprising their roles as Han Solo and Princess Leia there are a few new characters we have to be on the look out for later as action progresses in the trilogy. We’ve brought you everything you need to know about all the new characters in the film.

Rey is a Jakku scavenger, a survivor toughened by life on a harsh desert planet.

When the fugitive droid BB-8 appeals to her for mercy, Rey finds herself drawn into a galaxy-spanning conflict.

Despite dismissing herself as “no one”, she learns that her life is being shaped by the mysterious power of the Force.

Thirty years after the defeat of the Galactic Empire, the galaxy faces a new threat from the First Order. When a defector named Finn crash-lands on a desert planet named Jakku, he meets Rey, a tough scavenger whose droid contains a top-secret map. Together, the young duo joins forces with Han Solo to make sure the Resistance receives the intelligence concerning the whereabouts of Luke Skywalker, the last of the Jedi Knights.

FN-2187 was trained since birth to serve the First Order as a storm trooper, but a skirmish on Jakku awakened his conscience and drove him down a different path, one that proved both heroic and dangerous. He helped Poe Dameron escape the First Order — picking up the nickname Finn in doing so — and then sought his own freedom alongside Rey and BB-8.

A skittish but loyal astromech, BB-8 accompanied Poe Dameron on many missions for the Resistance, helping keep his X-wing in working order. When Poe’s mission to Jakku ended with his capture by the First Order, BB-8 fled into the desert with a vital clue to the location of Jedi Master Luke Skywalker.

THE EXPRESS TRIBUNE, JANUARY 10, 2016

3 George Lucas originally wanted the iconic Jedi master Yoda to be called Buffy. Fortunately, when screenwriter Leigh Brackett took another pass at the script, she changed the name to ‘Minch Yoda’, which eventually became Yoda.

Poe Dameron is a commander in the Resistance’s Starfighter Corps and one of Leia Organa’s most-trusted operatives. The son of a rebel fighter pilot and a rebel commando, Poe grew up on stories of Alliance campaigns. A decorated X-wing pilot, he can fly anything — which is fortunate given how often his headstrong nature leads him into trouble.

According to the official website, sound designer Ben Burtt was tasked with coming up with the Wookie language.

Lucas wanted it to sound both animalistic and sophisticated. When speeding up and slowing down bear noises didn’t have the desired effect, the designer admitted to using the audio from sick animals to help round out the character’s cry. So, every time you’re trying to emulate Chewbacca’s famous call, you’re actually doing your best impression of a dying walrus or badger.

While the films hung most of the plot on the protagonist Luke Skywalker, the actor didn’t make it easy for George Lucas to make him the star of the film. The actor kept getting injured, which made it very difficult to shoot him without explaining his cavalcade of facial marks.

Perhaps the biggest example of the actor’s difficult injuries happened when he was in a car accident just before filming The Empire Strikes Back. According to the outlet, the whole reason he got mauled in the early moments of the sequel was to explain why his face would be all cut up in subsequent scenes.

DESIGN BY MARYAM RASHID What would you like to see in Hi Five? Send an email to hifive@tribune.com.pk and let us know!

Hi-light

George Lucas visited his friend Steven Spielberg, a visit while he was filming Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Seeing how much better his friend’s production was going, he decided to make Spielberg an offer of two and a half per cent of his Star Wars earnings in exchange for the same margins on the earnings of Close Encounters. The latter was a success in its own right, earning some $300 million. However, it doesn’t even hold a candle to what Star Wars became.

The filmmaker originally intended for Orson Welles to be the voice of the character of Yoda. According to Mental Floss, he eventually dropped the idea fearing that the Citizen Cane actor’s voice had become too iconic and would be distracting to the audience.

THE EXPRESS TRIBUNE, JANUARY 10, 2016

Trivia

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Fun Facts about dreams

Q: Why do artists constantly feel cold?

A: Because they’re surrounded by drafts.

Q: What’s the different between a cat and a comma?

A: A cat has claws at the end of paws; a comma is a pause at the end of a clause.

Q: What does Charles Dickens keep in his spice rack?

A: The best of thymes, the worst of thymes.

Q: What do you call an old snowman?

A: Water

Q: What do you call a parade of rabbits hopping backwards?

A: A receding hare-line.

You can’t read in a dream, or tell the time.

There is a whole subculture of people practicing what is called lucid or conscious dreaming. Using various techniques, these people have supposedly learnt to assume control of their dreams and do amazing things like flying, passing through walls and traveling to different dimensions or even back in time.

Dreams are responsible for many of the greatest inventions of mankind. A few examples include: The idea for Google, alternating current generator, the sewing machine and the Periodic table.

There are some astounding cases where people actually dreamt about things which happened to them later, in the exact same order as in the dream. You could say they got a glimpse of the future, or it might have just been coincidence. The fact remains that this is some seriously interesting and bizarre phenomena.

An average human being spends six whole years of his/her life dreaming.

Toddlers don’t star in their own dreams till they are three or four years old.

Did you know?

History of toothpastes Egyptians are believed to have started using a paste to clean their teeth around 5000 BC, before toothbrushes were invented. Ancient Greeks and Romans are known to have used toothpastes, and people in China and India first used toothpaste around 500 BC. Ancient toothpastes were used to treat some of the same concerns that we have today — keeping teeth and gums clean, whitening teeth and freshening breath. The ingredients of ancient toothpastes were however very different and varied. Ingredients used included a powder of ox hooves, ashes and burnt eggshells that was combined with pumice(a type of volcanic rock). The Greeks and Romans favoured more abrasiveness and their toothpaste ingredients included crushed bones and oyster shells. The Romans added more flavoring to help with bad breath, as well as powdered charcoal and bark. The Chinese used a wide variety of substances in toothpastes over time that have included ginseng, herbal mints and salt.

The development of toothpastes in more modern times started in the 1800s. Early versions contained soap and in the 1850s chalk was included.

Betel nut was included in toothpaste in England in the 1800, and in the 1860s a home encyclopedia described a home-made toothpaste that used ground charcoal. Prior to the 1850s, toothpastes were usually powders. During the 1850s, a new toothpaste in a jar called Crème Dentifrice was developed and in 1873 Colgate started the mass production of toothpaste in jars. Until after 1945, toothpastes contained soap. After that time, soap was replaced by other ingredients to make the paste into a smooth paste or emulsion — such as sodium lauryl sulphate, a common ingredient in present-day toothpaste. In the second half of the 20th Century modern toothpastes were developed to help prevent or treat specific diseases and conditions such as tooth sensitivity. Fluoride toothpastes to help prevent decay were introduced in 1914. Toothpastes with very low abrasiveness were also developed and helped prevent the problems caused by overzealous brushing.

The most recent advances in toothpastes have included the development of whitening toothpastes, and toothpaste containing triclosan which provides extra protection against caries, gum disease, plaque, calculus and bad breath. Toothpastes today typically contain fluoride, coloring, flavouring, sweetener, as well as ingredients that make the toothpaste a smooth paste, foam and stay moist. Individual toothpastes may also contain special ingredients, such as triclosan. Toothpaste in tubes is used throughout the world and has been a very successful invention.

SOURCE: SPEAREDUCATION.COM

THE EXPRESS TRIBUNE, JANUARY 10, 2016

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

Dog whisperer Eight years ago, Laurie Anderson recalled in an interview, she was backstage with the cellist Yo-Yo Ma at a graduation ceremony at Rhode Island School of Design when she said to him, “I have this fantasy where I look out, and the whole audience is dogs.” He replied, “Are you kidding? I have the same fantasy.”

Ms. Anderson, the performance artist known for incorporating new technology into her work, got her wish two years later. She and her friends put on a concert for hundreds of dogs outside the Sydney Opera House, with the music emitted from speakers at a low, dog-friendly frequency. “It was a beautiful sound,” she said. “They barked for five minutes. That was one of the happiest moments of my life. Until now, Laurie had not had an opportunity to repeat the concert in Australia. But, last week, she got that chance: Dogs and their owners were invited to sit on the red steps of Duffy Square, last Monday while she performed music that, to passers-by in Times Square, did not sound like much because of the low frequency. Humans tuned in with wireless headphones that were given out beforehand. NYTIMES.COM

World wide weird

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MIRROR.CO.UK

Welcome to the family Four new elements have officially been added to the periodic table, according to the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC). These elements had been going by their temporary names: ununtrium (113), ununpentium (115), ununseptium (117), and ununoctium (118). Element 113 was confirmed by a Japanese research group. The other three were confirmed by a joint American-Russian effort. It’s one thing to find evidence of an element once. But to confirm its existence, as was done here, you need to demonstrate it experimentally multiple times.

These elements don’t exist in nature and can only be created in the lab by blasting particles at each other with a particle accelerator. They don’t last for very long, either. They can be named after a mythological concept, a mineral, a place country, property, or scientist. BUZZFEED.COM

Something fishy

This invention could change the way you grow your own food, by bringing gardening indoors and using fish poo to power it. This is the brainchild of two university friends who built the first Grove Eco-System in their shared student house. They are now trying to crowdfund enough money to get the fish off the ground. The aquaponics growing system is built inside a hand-made piece of bamboo furniture with a fish tank at the bottom. The fish are fed and produce ammonia-rich waste, which microbes transform into nitrates that are used as an organic plant fertiliser. Simultaneously they supply the plants with nutrients and the fish with clean water.

The unit costs $2,700 and comes with an app for you to control the lighting and keep in touch with other growers.

The price-tag doesn’t include the fish — you have to source these from your nearest pet shop.

Extreme sports For those of us complaining about getting on our bikes in the winter, a sobering tale of riding comes from Russia.

Commonly known as the world’s coldest city, Yakutsk, in the Russian Sakha Republic, has hosted what must be the chilliest bike race on the planet, with temperatures plummeting to -45°C. Although some of the cyclists at the Cycling Federation of Yakutia event found that their vehicles froze before the race began, 14 participants set off in thick fog, decked in balaclavas, gloves and scarves, reports The Siberian Times .

Yakutsk’s population is almost 300,000 and its average winter temperature is -34°C. The male winner of the race, Andrei Popov, completed the 10 kilometre distance in 30 minutes 44 seconds, while the women’s winner, Nelly Pakhomova tackled 5km in 29 minutes 51 seconds. “The bicycle race turned out to be such a challenge.” Nelly said. “My bicycle froze, and it was hard to cycle. It was very extreme, thanks to organisers.” Andrei added, “You need to dress up so that you don’t freeze, because it’s easy to turn into a piece of ice in such cold.” According to Yakutia.info , fur is essential for anyone racing in these conditions, and on Anderi wears pads made of camel wool on his feet. MIRROR.CO.UK

The day dreamer

By Mahnaz Mir There was once a boy named Harry. He was twelve years old, was very active and loved sports. Every weekend, his family spent some time together in the park near their house, playing cricket. Sometimes some cousins, aunts and uncles would also join them.

Although Harry’s other brothers also liked to play cricket he somehow had given it a special place in his life and he spent more time during the school days playing, watching and thinking about it. The best part was that Harry had become an amazing cricketer for the school team and he was appreciated and loved a lot by the sports teachers. He was praised by his class mates and cousins.

He won matches, bowled and batted beautifully. He seemed to get better and better with every match, every practice session.

The downside of this was that he lost interest in studies. His confidence in being a great sportsman made him become careless. He had never been a straight A student but he had never failed either. He had started to think that maybe he never needed to study at all. He kept spending his time outdoors and when his parents told him to study, he told them he had studied enough at school.

Harry’s mother was worried but Dad understood what was going on. He decided to let Harry make his mistake and learn from it.

Exams came closer and Harry was still busy watching cricket matches on TV, trying to learn new tricks from the professionals.

On exam day, when the questionnaire came in front of Harry, his head spun. He knew nothing. He looked around and saw all his friends, all class fellows furiously filling up their exam sheets with information they had learnt at school and home. Something hit him. He might know a lot about cricket but that wasn’t enough. He felt worse than losing a match. Day after day, exam after exam, he felt worse. Finally the exams were over and the result was out. Harry had failed! None of the teachers came to pat his back, his friends didn’t come to shout hurrah like they did when he won a match or shot a six. Harry had been living in a bubble of his dreams but he had ignored his parents and teachers warnings about getting proper education before dreaming. Harry learnt his lesson and created a balance between work and play throughout the next semester to successfully make up for his failure in the previous one.

Share your short stories with us.

Email them to hifive@tribune.com.pk

THE EXPRESS TRIBUNE, JANUARY 10, 2016

Reading corner

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Material

Directions:

• Rubber flip flops

• Glue the ribbon on the back end of the V on the flip flop and start wrapping it all the way to the centre. Repeat the process on the other side.

• Ribbon (The same colour as your flip flops) • Assorted beads • Glue gun • Thread and needle

• Thread the ribbon across the centre of the V to create a triangle shaped base for the beads.

• Thread the needle and start sowing beads onto the ribbon, starting from the centre.

• Make sure to thread each bead through a few times so they are securely attached to the ribbon.

PHOTO SOURCE: BUZZFEED.COM

Method: • Preheat the oven at 150OC for 30 minutes while you prepare your dish.

Ingredients:

• Cut discs out of pizza dough using a cookie cutter or a metal glass.

Pizza dough Pepperoni

12-15 slices

Cheddar cheese

1/2 cup, grated

Tomato ketchup

1/2 cup

Butter

1/4 cup, melted

Salt and pepper

To taste

Dried oregano, thyme flakes

To taste

• Glaze the disk with ketchup and then place a slice of pepperoni on to the disk, sprinkle on some cheese and seasoning.

• Lift the sides of the disk and bring them inwards to create a cup shape. Pinch them together at the centre to create a dough ball. Flip it and glaze it with butter before placing it on an ovenproof tray.

• Repeat the process until you have the required amount. Sprinkle on some of the leftover cheese and herbs if you like.

• Bake for 15 to 20 minutes. Serve with your favourite dip.

Remember kids, always get permission from your parents before you start. It’s always a good idea to have a helper nearby.

THE EXPRESS TRIBUNE, JANUARY 10, 2016

Mind games

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Word Search Sudoku Help Charlie Brown solve his mystery by solving the Sudoku in under 10 minutes.

Help Snoopy complete his quest by finding all the words given below, in the puzzle PEANUTS CHARLIE NOAH RED BROWN

BARON SNOOPY FIFI WORLD FRIENDSHIP

JOURNEY EMBARK NEMESIS IMPOSSIBLE ADVENTURE

THE EXPRESS TRIBUNE, JANUARY 10, 2016

We have all been told off for being glued to our phones or computers at one point in our lives or the other. But, did you know that gaming has a number of benefits other than in-game points and medals? Here’s a look at some of the many reasons why games are good for you.

Playing video games has been shown to release endorphins into the bloodstream, helping you feel happy and relaxed, particularly if you’re playing something nice and not too scary.

Louis Tomlinsion hates baked beans.

Niall Horan is a big fan of Justin Bieber, he screamed when Justin followed him on Twitter.

Video games might be getting more and more ‘violent’ these days but it turns out that beating a virtual character to a bloody pulp can actually have a beneficial effect. Studies have shown that aggression levels are actually lowered following a gaming session, as long as the session was not particularly long.

Research has found that certain video games, particularly ones that have rich, shadow-heavy environments such as action shooters and survival horror games can improve ‘contrast sensitivity’ in the eyes, this helps you see better in the dark.

It turns out that games that work on the premise of teamwork can help foster real-world abilities and relationships. Working with people towards a common goal, particularly in the realm of battle or combat games, helps create strong bonds with people then. Games make you more likely to build strong bonds with people outside of the world of video games.

Anyone who’s played a complex puzzle-solving game can attest to the level of frustration that a particularly vexing problem can bring, but it turns out these moments help us deal with real-world problems by engaging the logic centers of the brain. Research has found that those who played more problem-solving games were quicker and more able to deal with problems outside of the virtual world.

This is one of the best gaming benefits out there. Games help develop your hand-eye coordination and your spatial awareness increases.

Studies have found that playing fast-paced video games can actually give you some great practice for real-world situations. These include being quicker at making decisions. Gamers have been shown to improve their decision-making skills and speed by 25%, on average, when compared to their non-gamer equivalents.

Research has shown that playing video games can help you in multitasking. Thanks to games that force you into situations all at once, your mind grapple with multiple problems better and tackle them in sequential order. In other words, dealing with a wave of enemies, a failing power situation and the health of your team mates can actually make you better at switching tasks quickly and effectively in the real world.

SOURCE: LIFEHACKS.ORG

Louis Tomlinson first met Harry Styles in the X Factor toilets.

Harry Styles can juggle.

Harry’s musical heroes are The Beatles and he’s also a huge Coldplay fan.

If Louis had a superpower, he would fly.

Niall is lefthanded.

Harry came up with the band name One Direction.

Liam is an avid fan of boxing.

Liam Payne’s favourite Pokémon from the Black and White series is Throh.

Harry Styles ate his first ever Twinky on 28th January 2012!

Louis’s favourite band is The Fray.

Liam’s favourite colour is purple.

Liam has a very unusual phobia: He is afraid of spoons. He admits it’s “very strange”.

Niall says he’s only read one book in his life— the American classic To Kill A Mockingbird.