History of Cakes

Although clear examples of the difference between cake and bread are easy to find, the precise classification has always been elusive. For example, banana bread may be properly considered either a quick bread or a cake.
In ancient Rome, basic bread dough was sometimes enriched with butter, eggs, and honey, which produced a sweet and cake-like baked good. Latin poet Ovid refers to the birthday of him and his brother with party and cake in his first book of exile, Tristia.
Early cakes in England were also essentially bread: the most obvious differences between a "cake" and "bread" were the round, flat shape of the cakes, and the cooking method, which turned cakes over once while cooking, while bread was left upright throughout the baking process.

                                                       Zoha Mohsin

Varieties of Cakes

Cakes are broadly divided into several categories, based primarily on ingredients and cooking techniques.

• Yeast cakes are the oldest, and are very similar to yeast breads. Such cakes are often very traditional in form, and include such pastries as babka and stollen.
• Cheesecakes, despite their name, aren't really cakes at all. Cheesecakes are in fact custard pies, with a filling made mostly of some form of cheese (often cream cheese, mascarpone, ricotta or the like), and have very little to no flour added, although a flour-based crust may be used. Cheesecakes are also very old, with evidence of honey-sweetened cakes dating back to ancient Greece.
• Sponge cakes are thought to be the first of the non-yeast-based cakes and rely primarily on trapped air in a protein matrix (generally of beaten eggs) to provide leavening, sometimes with a bit of baking powder or other chemical leaven added as insurance. Such cakes include the Italian/Jewish pan di Spagna and the French Génoise. Highly decorated sponge cakes with lavish toppings are sometimes called gateau, after the French word for cake.
• Butter cakes, including the pound cake and devil's food cake, rely on the combination of butter, eggs, and sometimes baking powder to provide both lift and a moist texture.

Beyond these classifications, cakes can be classified based on their appropriate accompaniment (such as coffee cake) and contents (e.g. fruitcake or flourless chocolate cake).

Some varieties of cake are widely available in the form of cake mixes, wherein some of the ingredients (usually flour, sugar, flavoring, baking powder, and sometimes some form of fat) are premixed, and the cook needs add only a few extra ingredients, usually eggs, water, and sometimes vegetable oil or butter. While the diversity of represented styles is limited, cake mixes do provide an easy and readily available homemade option for cooks who are not accomplished bakers.
  
                                                        Areeba Zia & Manahil Masood

Tabeer Shaikh

Hisory of Tennis

Most historians believe that tennis originated in France in the 12th century, but the ball was then struck with the palm of the hand. It was not until the 16th century that rackets came into use, and the game began to be called "tennis." It was popular in England and France, although the game was only played indoors where the ball could be hit off the wall. Henry VIII of England was a big fan of this game, which historians now refer to as real tennis.

Harry Gem and his friend Augurio Perera developed a game that combined elements of rackets and the Basque ball game pelota, which they played on Perera's croquet lawn in Birmingham, United Kingdom. In 1872, along with two local doctors, they founded the world's first tennis club in Leamington Spa.

In December 1873, Major Walter Clopton Wingfield designed and patented a similar game — which he called sphairistike (Greek: σφάίρίστική, from ancient Greek meaning "skill at playing at ball"), and was soon known simply as "sticky" — for the amusement of his guests at a garden party on his estate of Nantclwyd, in Llanelidan, Wales.He likely based his game on the evolving sport of outdoor tennis including real tennis. According to some tennis historians, modern tennis terminology also derives from this period, as Wingfield borrowed both the name and much of the French vocabulary of real tennis and applied them to his new game.

Sahil Rahim &

Hassan Sohail

History of Rugby

A game of rugby football developed from a version of football played at Rugby School and was originally one of several different versions of football played at English public schools during the 19th century.

The game of football that was played at Rugby School between 1750 and 1859 permitted handling of the ball, but no-one was allowed to run with it in their hands towards the opposition's goal. There was no fixed limit to the number of players per side and sometimes there were hundreds taking part in a kind of enormous rolling maul. This sport caused major injury at times. The innovation of running with the ball was introduced some time between 1859 and 1865. William Webb Ellis has been credited with breaking the local rules by running forwards with the ball in a game in 1823. Shortly after this written rules were established for the sports which had earlier just involved local agreements, and boys from Rugby School produced the first written rules for their version of the sport in 1870.

In the result that the teams were still tied at the end of the match a drop goal shoot out was held. The selected kickers of the two teams would have 1 shot at the goal each and would take turns shooting at the goal until one of the kickers missed.

Around this time the influence of Dr Thomas Arnold, Rugby's headmaster, was beginning to be felt around all the other public schools, and his emphasis on sport as part of a balanced education naturally encouraged the general adoption of the Rugby rules across the country, and, ultimately, the world.

Anas Iqbal &
Qammer Meral

Dengue fever continues to spread, as more than 200 cases were reported in one day across Pakistan.

In Lahore, 169 cases of dengue have been reported, while a spokesman for Punjab Health Department has stated that there is no shortage of platelets in government hospitals. He also said that 4,122 dengue patients have been cured and 128 are still under treatment, and that the disease is on the decline in the province.

While in Sindh there have been reports of 68 new cases, which takes the total number of cases in the province to 2,950, with 2,551 cases being reported from Karachi.

So far 20 people have died as a result of the virus in the province. The Health Ministry in Sindh has offered free treatment for dengue patients.                                               

  

 by M.Owais  and Abuzar rizvi           

Marine Mammals

                                           by Nisha Yasin & Gulnar Fatima

Marine mammals are a diverse group of 120 species of mammal that are primarily ocean-dwelling or depend on the ocean for food. They include the cetaceans (whales, dolphins, and porpoises), the sirenians (manatees and dugong), the pinnipeds (true seals, eared seals and walrus), and several otters (the sea otter and marine otter). The polar bear, while not fully aquatic, is also usually considered a marine mammal because it lives on sea ice for most or all of the year.

 

Marine mammals evolved from land dwelling ancestors and share several adaptive features for life at sea such as generally large size, hydrodynamic body shapes, modified appendages and various thermoregulatory adaptations. Whales are the largest mammals ever. Different species are, however, adapted to marine life to varying degrees. The most fully adapted are the cetaceans and the sirenians, which cannot live on land.

 

Despite the fact that marine mammals are highly recognizable charismatic megafauna, many populations are vulnerable or endangered due to a history of commercial use for blubber, meat, ivory and fur. Most species are currently in protection from commercial use.