e n u b i tr THE
EX
U S T R IB PRES
NE, M
A RC H
14 16 , 2 0
go All things Le 3 2E PAG
bles Make vegeta 4 E G PA
t Runaway ca PAGE 5
cts Cool sound fa 6 E PAG
Your Proofness: Sarah Munir Master Storyteller: Sundar Waqar Creativity Analysts: Jamal Khurshid, Essa Malik, Samra Aamir,, Talha Ahmed Khan, Munira Abbas and Umar Waqas
THE EXPRESS TRIBUNE, MARCH 16, 2014
Hi light
2 Have you ever played with colourful plastic bricks and tried to attach them together to build figures, buildings or airplanes? You must know then that these blocks are called Lego. Lego is a popular line of construction toys manufactured by The Lego Group. The company’s flagship product, Lego, consists of colourful interlocking plastic bricks and an accompanying collection of gears, mini-figures and various other parts. Lego bricks can be assembled and connected in many ways, to construct objects such as vehicles, buildings and even working robots. Anything constructed can then be taken apart again, and the pieces used to make other objects. The Lego Group also just produced a movie called The Lego Movie.
Did you know that The Lego Group began in the workshop of Ole Kirk Christiansen, a carpenter from Denmark, who began making wooden toys in 1932? In 1934, his company came to be called ‘Lego’, from the Danish phrase leg godt, which means ‘play well’. It expanded to producing plastic toys and among other new products, an early version of the now famous interlocking bricks, calling them ‘Automatic Binding Bricks’. The blocks snapped together, but not so tightly that they required extraordinary effort to be separated. By 1954, Christiansen’s son, Godtfred, had become the junior managing director of the Lego Group. It was his conversation with an overseas buyer that led to the idea of a toy system. Godtfred saw the immense potential in Lego bricks to become a system for creative play, but the bricks still had some problems from a technical standpoint: their locking ability was limited and they were not very versatile. In 1958, the modern brick design was developed, and it took another five years to find the right material for it. The modern Lego brick was patented on January 28, 1958. The Lego Group’s ‘Duplo’ product line, introduced in 1969, is a range of simple blocks which measure twice the width, height and depth of standard Lego blocks, and are aimed at younger children.
Lego has branched out into the video game market since 1997, beginning with games such as Lego Island and Lego Creator. Popular titles include the 1999 game Lego Racers and the 2001 game Lego Racers 2. More recent licensed games include Lego Star Wars, Lego Indiana Jones, Lego Batman, and many more.
Since the 1950s, the Lego Group has released thousands of sets with a variety of themes, including town, city, space, robots, pirates, trains, Vikings, castle, dinosaurs, undersea exploration and wild west. The Lego range has expanded to encompass accessory motors, gears, lights, sensors and cameras designed to be used with Lego components. Motors, battery packs, lights and switches are sold under the name Power Functions. So, Lego has a whole range of sets you can choose from and customise your toys and constructions.
Merlin Entertainments operates six Legoland amusement parks in Billund, Denmark, Windsor, England, Günzburg, Germany, Carlsbad, California, Winter Haven, Florida and Nusajaya, Malaysia. There are also eight Legoland Discovery Centres, two in Germany, four in the United States, one in Japan and one in the United Kingdom. Two new Legoland Discovery Centres are to open at the Westchester Ridge Hill shopping complex in Yonkers, NY and at the Vaughan Mills in Vaughan, Ontario, Canada.
THE EXPRESS TRIBUNE, MARCH 16, 2014
3
Hi light
is a 2014 American computer animated stop-motion adventure comedy medy film. All the characters, buildings and sets in the movie are made from Lego and we see the ‘master builders’ use Lego to create things to protect themselves from the evil Lord Business and the bad cop. The wizard Vitruvius attempts to protect the ‘Kragle’, a superweapon, from evil Lord Business who plans to destroy everything with it. He fails to do so, but warns Business of a prophecy where a person called the “Special” will find the Piece of Resistance capable of stopping the Kragle. Eightand-a-half years later, Em Emmet Brickowski, an ordinary construction worker, comes across a woman named Wyldstyle, who is searching for somethi something after hours at Emmet’s construction site. When he investigates, Emmet falls into a hole and finds the Piece of Resistance. Emmet is tempted to touch it and experiences vivid visions and passes out. He awakens in the custody of Bad Cop, with a ssplit Good Cop personality, with the Piece of Resistance attached to his back. There, Emmet learns of Business’ plans to fr freeze the world with the Kragle (a tube of Krazy Glue with the label partially rubbed out). Wyldstyle rescues Emmet and takes him to Vitruvius, explaining that he and Wyldstyle are ‘Master Builders’ capable of building anything they need, both with great speed and without instruction manuals with Lego. And the movie goes on to show their adventures and how tthey save the world. Watch it to find out more.
What would you like to see in Hi Five? Send an email to hifive@tribune.com.pk and let us know!
THE EXPRESS TRIBUNE, MARCH 16, 2014
Activity
4
Pipe Cleaner Vegetables Pipe cleaners are fun and nifty materials we use in a lot of crafts. In this activity, ToffeeTV.com’s Ayesha Mehmood shows you how to make a carrot from some pipe cleaners! Check it out!
Supplies needed:
Step 1 Roll an orange pipe cleaner to the top of a paint brush.
Step 2
•Paint brush •Pipe cleaners •Scissors
Carefully slide the pipe cleaner out of the roll you just created.
Step 3 Now use a green pipe cleaner to make the head of a carrot. Twist the three loops together. Your Pipe Cleaner Vegetables is now ready.
Step 4 Now fix the green loops you just made onto the orange carrot. Your carrot is now ready!
Want to watch a video guide for this? Log onto Toffeetv.com and check out the activities section!
THE EXPRESS TRIBUNE, MARCH 16, 2014
Get your weekly dose of the unusual and funny news from across the globe!
Praise science The belief that food is still good to consume if it has been dropped on the floor for fewer than six seconds — commonly known as the five-second rule — is real. Final year biology students at a British university found that time is a ‘significant factor’ in the transfer of bacteria from the floor to a piece of food. The students, from Birmingham’s Aston University working under Professor of microbiology Anthony Hilton, monitored how quickly E. coli and other common bacteria spread from indoor floor surfaces to toast, pasta and other sticky foods. As well as providing some evidence to support the five-second rule, they also found that the type of flooring is crucial in the transfer of bacteria, with carpet surprisingly being the safest. Consuming food dropped on the floor still carries an infection risk as it very much depends on which bacteria are present on the floor at the time; however the findings of this study will bring some light relief to those who have been relying on the ‘five-second rule’ for years, despite a general consensus that it is purely a myth. METRO.CO.UK
World wide weird
5
Runaway cat
A long-lost cat has been reunited with his owners after reappearing at a vet surgery it went missing from eight years ago. Ginger and white tomcat Jesse was just 18 months old when he fled during a routine visit to a veterinary surgeos, in Congleton, Staffordshire, in 2006. Terrified of getting his injections, Jesse managed to break free of his cat box and vanished. His family had long given up hope of ever seeing their cat again. However, incredibly he turned up alive and well last week at very same vet he ran away from. Owner Lesley Corbett, 48, said: “We have no idea where Jesse had been for eight years but we are so happy to have him back. We really thought there was no way he would come back after this long. To hear he turned up at the vets where animals usually hate going to is amazing — he was in such a rush to get away from there eight years ago.” She added: “He just decided he didn’t want to go to the nasty vet and hurled himself at the front of the cat box and broke the door off. He was last seen heading off up by the side of the vet’s and running.” Jesse, who was only able to be reunited with his owners thanks to being micro-chipped, is now back at home with his family at Mow Cop, Staffordshire. METRO.CO.UK
Suit up This baby looks set to battle after her dad built a costume inspired by the sci-fi classic Aliens. YouTube user Carsten Riewe posted a video showing the impressive outfit that was based on the ‘Caterpillar Powered Work Loader’ from the 1986 James Cameron movie. Just like the machine in the film the costume has a circulating LED light and also has realistic looking mechanical arms and legs. Riewe wrote: “The on/off switch is in the left arm. Also in the backpack a Bluetooth boom box is installed to play mechanical robot sound or music if preferred.” The girl, who is too young to appreciate how cool the outfit is, is strapped to the chest of her dad while he stomps around like a machine. “My 13-months-old daughter enjoyed being carried and moved in her harness safely,” he added. It took Riewe 100 hours to finish the yellow costume, which he debuted at the Karneval parade in Germany last month. METRO.CO.UK
No honking, please If Graham and Fiona Haddow weren’t sure who is in the driving seat there isn’t any doubt now. Their boxer dog Fern was not best pleased to be left in the car when the Haddows visited an art gallery. In fact, it took Fern only five minutes to show her displeasure. She slid into the front seat and blasted the horn. When there was no response, she did it again and again. For 15 minutes. Amused passers-by stopped, took photos and filmed her. Haddow, 58, feared the worst when he returned to his car to find a crowd gathered around it. “When I got closer, I realised people were pointing and laughing and taking pictures,” he said. “She was sitting in there casually honking the horn. A young lad on a scooter told me he had been there from the beginning and it had been going on for 15 minutes, we had only been away for 20 minutes.” Haddow said: “It was as if she was saying: ‘‘Where have you been? I’ve been waiting’’. She is a bit of a diva, she just wants a bit of attention.’ METRO.CO.UK
THE EXPRESS TRIBUNE, MARCH 16, 2014
Did you know?
6
Word Origins Abracadabra These days you might hear this word before a stage magician pulls a rabbit out of his hat, but hundreds of years ago people actually believed that ‘abracadabra’ was a magical spell. The exact origin of the word is up for debate, but perhaps one of the oldest records we have of abracadabra being used is a snippet from a Roman sage named Serenus Sammonicus in the 2nd century. It’s unlikely that Sammonicus came up with the word on his own and it is thought to have been in use before then. There are a couple of theories as to where it might have ultimately come from. First, it could have been derived from the equally magical word ‘abraxas’ whose letters, in Greek numerology, add up to 365—the number of days in the year. It could be that old, wise people thought this was a powerful word and somehow created abracadabra out of it and turned it into a cure. Perhaps, it could be derived from and Aramaic phrase ‘avra kadavra’. Harry Potter fans will likely know that this is what JK Rowling used when she was coming up with the killing curse ‘avada kedavra’. In an interview, she stated that the original phrase meant ‘let the thing be destroyed’, which would suit the cure-theory well; abracadabra was written to ‘destroy’ the sickness. Eventually, people let go of the abracadabra superstition and by the 19th century the practice of hanging an abracadabra charm around your neck to cure disease had died down. At this point, the word started to take on the meaning of ‘fake magic’ which is what we know today—after all, magicians don’t actually make rabbits appear out of thin air.
How to say ‘what time is it’ in different languages Catalan Croatian Czech Danish Dutch Filipino Finnish French German Haitian-creole Hungarian Italian Malay Norwegian Portugese Romanian Swedish Turkish
: : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : :
Quina hora és Koliko je sati Kolik je hodin Hvad er klokken Hoe laat is het Anong oras na Paljonko kello on Quelle heure est-il Wie spät ist es Ki lè li Mennyi az ido Che ore sono Apa masa ia Hva er klokken Que horas sao Cat e ceasul Vad är klockan Saat kac
Cool facts Sound comes from vibrations. These vibrations create sound waves which move through mediums such as air and water before reaching our ears. Dogs can hear sound at a higher frequency than humans, allowing them to hear noises that we can’t. Sound is used by many animals to detect danger, warning them of possible attacks before they happen. Sound can’t travel through a vacuum (an area empty of matter). The speed of sound is around 767 miles per hour (1,230 kilometres per hour). The loud noise you create by cracking a whip occurs because the tip is moving so fast it breaks the speed of sound. When traveling through water, sound moves around four times faster than when it travels through air. Although music can be hard to define, it is often described as a pleasing or meaningful arrangement of sounds. \The sound of thunder is produced by rapidly heated air surrounding lightning which expands faster than the speed of sound.
THE EXPRESS TRIBUNE, MARCH 16, 2014
7
Fun & games
Crossword
How carefully did you read this week’s issue of HiFive? If you think you are upto the task, try to solve our special crossword. The answers are all over HiFive! Put on your thinking caps, it is time to put the old noggin to work!
Across 1. Sound comes from -------------. 4. Sound can’t travel through a ------------. 6. Sound is used by many animals to detect -----------, warning them of possible attacks before they happen. 8. Dogs can hear sound at a ---------- — — frequency than humans. 9. The vibrations create -------- — — waves which move through mediums such as air and water before reaching our ears. 10. Did you know that The Lego Group began in the workshop of Ole Kirk Christiansen, a carpenter from Denmark, who began making wooden --------— — in 1932. 12. When traveling through -----------, sound moves around four times faster than when it travels through air.
Down 2. Although music can be hard to define, it is often described as a pleasing or meaningful ----------- — — of sounds. 3. The --------- — — noise you create by cracking a whip occurs because the tip is moving so fast it breaks the speed of sound. 5. A vacuum is an area empty of ------------. 7. The sound of ------------- — — is produced by rapidly heated air surrounding lightning which expands faster than the speed of sound. 11. The ----------- — — of sound is around 767 miles per hour (1,230 kilometres per hour).
THE EXPRESS TRIBUNE, MARCH 16, 2014
Notable Entries for the Liberty Books Card Competition
Abdul Moeez
Shazia Mujtaba
Khuram
Hamza Saad Winner
Marium
Muneeb Ahmed
Mariyam Majeed Winner