The Express Tribune hi five - September 23

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THE EXPRESS TRIBUNE, SEPTEMBER 23, 2012

Hi light

By Nafil Malik Did you know that people once believed that the world was flat?

Read about that and more in our book of strange beliefs!

Flat Earth, Flatter Heads!

All Well that ends Well!

The ancient Maya believed in a number of different gods whom they worshipped and offered human sacrifices. Rulers were believed to be descendants of the Mayan gods and their blood was the ideal sacrifice, either through personal bloodletting or the sacrifice of captives of royal blood. In each Maya city there were two wells: one for drinking water and the other was used for speaking to the gods. Every day at dawn, a girl would be thrown into the well around 20 meters deep. At noon she would be pulled back out of the well and asked, “What did the gods say to you?” And whatever the girl replied, the Mayans believed it as the word of god. There were also chances that the girl would drown and die in which case she wouldn’t really say anything. Some Mayans even sacrificed their children by feeding them to jaguars, now aren’t you happy you weren’t born back then?

Have you ever looked off into the horizon, to where it seems that the Earth meets the sky, and assumed that must be one of the “edges” of the Earth? It would seem that if you walked all the way to that point, you would reach some kind of a corner!

For many years, people on Earth thought our planet was a flat shape with edges.

But people from the sub-continent believed that the Earth was a disc that consisted of four continents grouped around a mountain called Meru like the petals of a flower and the ancient Norse believed that the earth was flat surrounded by an ocean with a huge tree in the centre. They even believed that there was a huge snake called Jormungandr in the ocean!

It was the philosophers and astronomers in Ancient Greece who discovered the earth was round. In spite of these discoveries, lots of people still continued to believe that the Earth was flat for many, many years! Eventually, explorers like Christopher Columbus would help provide further proof by sailing to “the end of the Earth” and showing that it didn’t exist...because if it did they would have fallen off!

Mandrakes andd Madness

A mandrake is an interesting plant nt whos w whose ho hos o e rroots oot oots oo os resemble a human figure. There ar many are em any a n legends surrounding this plant. Itt iiss sa man-ssaid aid that aid that at man m ma drakes often grow in the east near paradise orr u unar p para aradis ara disse o nder the feet of men who were executed hangecute ec ute ted by by h ang ging them on trees. It was also believed ieved ie ve ved e th that a if at i a mandrake was pulled out of the gr ground, roots g oun nd, d iits t ro oots t would scream causing madness o orr even death. even d de ath.. ath Moreover, it was believed that the e mandrake mand mand n ra rak ake could even escape if it sensed an ev intention. evilil int tent e ion i .

As a result, there was a strange met method m hod to pu pullll it out. To pull it out, one must first markk around d iit with iron, digging with an ivory stake and making sure that the iron does not touch the mandrake.

Then the top of the mandrake had to be tied to a hungry dog. A little food then had to be placed out of the dog’s reach. The person should stand well away with wax in his ears. The dog, wanting to get to the food would run towards it and pull the mandrake out and, as a result, it would be killed by the mandrake’s shrieks.

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

THE EXPRESS TRIBUNE, SEPTEMBER 23, 2012

3

Hi light

Bloody Barbers!

Going Batty over the Blackk D Deathh

In the 14th century, a horrible disease struck Asia, Africa, and Europe and killed more than a hundred million people. The people called this illness the Black Death. Infected people first broke out with red ring shaped marks with dark rings on their arms and necks. They would run high fevers.

They became even more ill, and then they died.

We now know that the Black Death was caused by fleas and spread by rats. However, back then many people believed in all sorts of crazy things. Some who were not yet ill ran away to the countryside to live and held flowers to their noses because they believed that the disease spread through smelling foul odours. Some even thought that they could try to drive out the infectious foul odours by spending their days in dirty bathrooms smelling different foul odours. Physicians, priests and others had theories about the cause of the plague: earthquakes that released poisonous fumes, for example. Some thought that the plague came from the raining down of frogs, toads, and reptiles. Both the pope and the king of France sent urgent requests for help to the medical faculty at the University of Paris, then one of the most respected medical groups in the Western world. The faculty responded that the plague was the result of a conjunction of the planets Saturn, Mars, and Jupiter at 1 P.M. on March 20, 1345!

Some people even believed that when water evaporated from the sea, it carried the devil’s poisons with it which spread in the air. In one town, two people bathed in urine every morning for protection. Others swallowed pus from the boils of plague victims!

A Hole in your Head

If you were alive thousands of years ago and had a terrible headache what would the doctor recommend? Oh you know, just the usual – some painkillers, plenty of rest, water and drilling a hole in the head! While modern medicine tries to save lives and relieve people of their illnesses in the most painless way possible, ancient medical beliefs were bent upon doing just the opposite. One such belief was the use of ‘Trepanation’ – carving out holes in the head using a crude piece of metal for cutting out a round piece of skull bone. In ancient times, it was believed that piercing the head would not only cure migraines and seizures, but could also be used on mentally ill people to ‘allow the bad spirits to escape’. Needless to say, if someone was not mentally disturbed before this absurd treatment, they would definitely lose their mind after the treatment.

A long time ago, people believed that having too much blood caused illness. As a result they thought that losing some blood could cure illnesses. Have you ever wondered why the barber shops in the movies and cartoons have a barber pole with colourful spiral stripes outside? The history of the barber pole dates back to the late Middle Ages when barbers not only cut hair but also performed surgical procedures and used the pole as a means of advertising their services! Early physicians thought that surgery was not part of medicine, so the tasks of mending wounds, blood-letting and extracting teeth fell to the barbers. The typical barber-surgeon’s equipment for bloodletting or applying leeches consisted of a stick (for the patient to hold, causing the veins of the arm to stand out sharply), a basin (to catch blood), and a number of linen bandages. At other times, a scratch was made and a heated cup was placed over it to ‘suck’ the blood out. Instead of making cuts, ‘doctors’ would use leeches to suck the blood out.

The amount of blood to be let out, and from where it was to be drained out depended on the disease.

No Iron please, we’re Indians!

The earliest discovery of the properties of lodestone (A lodestone is a naturally magnetic mineral) was either by the Greeks or Chinese. Pliny the Elder (a Greek author) wrote of a hill near the river Indus (right here in Pakistan) that was made entirely of a stone that attracted iron. For many years following its discovery, magnetite was surrounded in superstition and was considered to possess magical powers, such as the ability to heal the sick, frighten away evil spirits and also attract and dissolve ships made of iron! The people in the subcontinent believed that there were whole islands of a magnetic nature that could attract ships by virtue of the iron nails used in their construction. Ships that thus disappeared at sea were believed to have been mysteriously pulled by these islands. As a result, in the eleventh century, an Indian writer known as Bhoja advised shipbuilders not to use iron in their ships. This is one of the reasons Ancient India never built a proper navy!

Design: Maha Haider

THE EXPRESS TRIBUNE, SEPTEMBER 23, 2012

4

Activity Corner

Design and test a Parachute Supplies needed:

Learn about air resistance while making an awesome parachute!

•A plastic bag or a light material •Scissors •String •A small object to act as the weight, a little action figure would be perfect

Step 1

Cut out a large square from your plastic bag or material.

Cut a small whole near the edge of each side.

Step 3

Step 2

Attach 4 pieces of string of the same length to each of the holes.

Tie the pieces of string to the object you are using as a weight.

Animation, or movement, is controlled through something called “frames”. Each frame in a cartoon film, has a different position inside it, and when you go through the different frames, you get actual animation! rtant to unimation, it’s impo To learn about an which is why s, en ovement happ derstand how m s made these ToffeeTV.com ha Talea Zafar from w to animate! you can learn ho frogs for you, so

Step 4

Step 5

Use a chair or find a high spot to drop your parachute and test how well it worked, remember that you want it to drop as slow as possible.

Remember kids, always get permission from your parents before you start.

It’s always a good idea to have a helper nearby.

! g o r F d e t a The Anim

You Need: Here’s What A Pencil Glue Stick Scissors

Instructions:

tted lines so and cut on the do bottom. Be sure e th on s ing aw 1. Cut out the two drwill be of the exact same size. les both the rectang d strip. side along the re and glue the left #2 ing aw Dr r. of p he to ot 2. Place Drawing #1 one drawings are now exactly on top of one an th th bo at th e se l You’l and place your side of the page strip on the right ey gr e th on e 3. Place some glu pencil on it. u get to e papers until yo

4. Begin rolling both th

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slide the your right hand, left hand. Using ur yo u slide th yo wi r as pe d then the pa 5. Hold the left side ofse the papers. You’ll see the frog at rest, eanfly! d clo g eating th pencil to open an u will see the fro up the scene, yo the pencil to open If you want to watch an instruction video, you can log onto http://bit.ly/ttv-frog and follow the Chief Illustrator!

Want to watch other fun activities like this? Log onto toffeetv.com!

THE EXPRESS TRIBUNE, SEPTEMBER 23, 2012

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

5

Hands on

Camera falls

This ten-year-old boy is committed and determined to beat his disability and to pursue his education, even if that means walking to and from school on his hands every day.

Yan Yuhong, of Jiaba village, in China’s Hubei Province, has been walking on his hands since the past four years when he was left partially paralysed by a childhood illness.

He initially crawled to get around but learnt to walk on his hands when he was just fouryears-old.

Yan has to get up much earlier than his classmates — as his journey takes him an hour-and-a-half each way. He can also get about with crutches but says he can walk much faster on his hands.

His father is also disabled, leaving his mother as the sole bread-winner, but Yan is determined to finish his schooling. “I don’t want to quit… I want to study hard, and support myself in the future,” he said. SOURCE: WEB.ORANGE.CO.UK

Lucas Damm had a reason to yell out his last name when the camera on his sky-diving helmet fell out just as he jumped from a plane. But luckily for Lucas when he landed in British Columbia, he found his camera unscathed after surviving a 12,500-foot fall!

The skydiver recently did a jump near Pitt Meadows, hoping to capture it on his GoPro, a type of camera designed to fit on the helmet. But on the way out of the plane, his helmet hit the door and the camera popped out and started heading towards the ground even faster than him.

He had no idea what happened until he landed. “I go to turn it off and I didn’t hear it beeping, and I know the [spot where the camera is held] is open and I just start freaking out,” he said.

A fellow skydiver found the camera on a grass field near the targeted landing site — without any damage, to his amazement. “It’s just one of those random things … It’s like winning the lottery of lotteries. For everything to come together the way that it happened is mind-boggling,” he said.

Big feet

SOURCE: HUFFINGTONPOST.COM

Like any girl of her age, Emma Cahill loves to wear heels. However, shopping for them is a bit tricky.

That’s because the 19-year-old, from Worcester, has one of the biggest pairs of feet and at size 14 has only ever found shoes that fit her at a shop in Germany.

Emma, who is 6ft 5in, is double the UK women’s average size of seven and has to make do with only one pair of stilettos because she finds it ‘impossible’ to find the right shoes.

She said: “I think I’ve got the biggest feet in Europe, which makes it impossible to find shoes that fit. I own one pair of stilettos — but they’re not very classy.”

From the age of nine she wore a bigger-thanaverage size nine — the same size feet as her mum Jane, 49 — and up to the age of 14 she grew a shoe size every year.

She said: “I was so relieved when my feet stopped growing. I was terrified I’d end up with boat feet.”

For the last six years she has sported a gold pair of pumps bought from a US website which has since gone out of business. Emma, whose feet measure 13in, has re-heeled the shoes three times, and even has to repaint them with gold fabric paint three times a year. SOURCE: DAILYMAIL.CO.UK

Death by heat No ice cream will be able to cool you down over here because the cold treat is going to trickle down your fingers even before you can say “it’s melting”. Death Valley, California, has been recognised by the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) as the hottest place on earth on July 10, 1913, when temperatures reached 134 degrees Fahrenheit (F).

The record is a bit of a coup for Death Valley, as the title of the world’s hottest place is “as symbolic for meteorologists as Mount Everest is for geographers,” the WMO said.

The 1913 record occurred during a year of extremes for Death Valley. The weather station at Greenland Ranch (now Furnace Creek Ranch) recorded a string of five days at 129 degrees F or above in July of that year, and on January 8, 1913, posted the record low for Death Valley, 15 degrees F. Death Valley has reached the 129-degree mark four more times, in 1960, 1998, 2005 and 2007. The Park Service says Death Valley’s hottest summer ever was in 1996, when it had 40 days higher than 120 degrees F. SOURCE: NEWS.BLOGS.CNN.COM

Riddled with rats The safest bet would be to opt for chicken in the wake of news that cane rats and other potentially unsafe meat have been sold to the public in east London.

Secret filming in one of the capital’s busiest food markets has revealed that butchers and food stores are prepared to sell large quantities of meat that breaks food safety laws with the Ridley Road Market, in Dalston, being hailed as the hotbed of illicit meat activity.

“This is shocking, I am just so shocked to see so much of it,” said Paul Povey, one of the UK’s leading experts in meat hygiene and inspections and a member of the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health. “It’s all illegal and hasn’t undergone health control, hasn’t been inspected and may well be contaminated,” he added.

The trade in bush meat is a persistent problem for the UK authorities with illegal meat products smuggled in by passengers in ferry terminals and airports. The Food Standards Agency says there are worries that bush meat could be of serious risk to both those who eat it and to others from contamination. SOURCE: BBC.CO.UK

Pay back prank An irked driver seeking vengeance on cops who issued him a $137 (Rs12,953) expired inspection ticket tried to pay the fine in $1 bills folded up into tiny origami pigs — inside a donut box.

The Houston man posted video of the hilarious exchange on YouTube, under the username Bacon Moose, where it’s been viewed more than 200,000 times.

“I got this ticket in a town where the cops (and absurd red-light cameras) are pretty much a money trap and that’s it,” he wrote. “I decided to pay in an appropriate manner,” he added.

The man said he tucked a cell phone with a video camera into his shirt pocket before arriving at the City of Jersey Village Municipal Court to pay the ticket. The video shows the man sliding two Dunkin Donuts boxes filled with 137 origami pigs under the window, to the teller.

“The donut boxes were an afterthought,” Bacon Moose said. “As I was making the pigs, I thought, I have to bring them into the courthouse somehow ... where do I put them?”

Later, the officer appears to get the joke, and snaps a picture. “Little piggies in a donut box. I got it, I got it,” he says.

Bacon Moose documented the process on a website, where he said it took about six hours to make 137 origami pigs. SOURCE: NYDAILYNEWS.COM

THE EXPRESS TRIBUNE, SEPTEMBER 23, 2012

6

Did you know?

s n i g i r O d r o W Dark Horse Most of you must have seen the 2011 Cricket World Cup. Some of you may remember this line, “So tomorrow, the Dark Horses of the tournament, Pakistan kick off their World Cup campaign against Kenya!” For a second I, as some of you may have done so now, imagined Shahid Afridi in a black cricket kit as the ‘Dark Horse’. However, the term didn’t mean that Pakistan were a bunch of black stallions ready to charge through the world cup, the phrase is used to describe someone who is a real mystery and comes out of nowhere and achieves a certain feat.

This phrase is said to have originated from betting activities on horse races. A Dark Horse was a relatively unknown horse and it was difficult for punters to bet on it. This earliest reference of this phrase is from 1831 when Benjamin Disraeli wrote in an article in ‘The Young Duke’: “A dark eping horse, which had never been thought of, rushed past the grand stand in sweeping triumph.”

How to say 'Yellow' in different languages?

Arabic Bulgarian Chinese (Cantonese) Danish Dutch Esperanto Estonian Filipino Finnish French Greek Hawaiian Indonesian Japanese Mongolian Thai Tibetan Turkish

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

Assfar Bjal Baahk Gul Geel Blanca Valge Puti Valkoinen Blanc Aspro Melemele Putih Shiro Cagaan See-kharw Karpo Beyaz

Cool facts The first alarm clock could only ring at 4am.

Slugs have 4 noses.

Panphobia is the fear of everything... which is a pretty unlucky phobia to have.

An apple, potato, and onion all taste the same if you eat them with your nose plugged.

A company in Taiwan makes dinnerware out of wheat, so you can eat your plate!

The average person walks the equivalent of twice around the world in a lifetime.

Marco Hort has the world record for fitting 264 straws in his mouth at once!

Mel Blanc — the voice of Bugs Bunny — was allergic to carrots.

In the Caribbean there are oysters that can climb trees.

THE EXPRESS TRIBUNE, SEPTEMBER 23, 2012

7

Fun & games

Want to be hi five’s artist of the week?

Send your drawing with your name and age to: hifive@tribune. com.pk

THE EXPRESS TRIBUNE, SEPTEMBER 23, 2012

Make your way through the maze

SOURCE: NURSERY-RHYMES-FUN.COM

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