In a TV show on CNN, called “Anthony Bourdain – Parts Unknown”, the host, Anthony Bourdain, travels to taste the cuisine of countries around the world. In the process he also learns about the history and culture of each country. In one of the recent episodes that we watched, Bourdain traveled to Laos, a country in Southeast Asia. Bourdain rode on a motorbike, sampling various foods, and witnessing several cultural events, such as a boat festival. The show featured Bourdain trying chicken feet, squid and other quite interesting foods, such as congealed buffalo blood soup with herbs.
A map of Laos. Laos is in green.
Laos is bordered by Myanmar, China, Cambodia, Thailand, and Vietnam. It’s popu
lation is approximately six million. The capitol of Laos is Vientiane. Most people are Buddhists. The currency of money is the Kip. The scenery in that we saw as the host moved from place to place looked wonderful. The country has a lot of wildlife, mountains, valleys, and dense forests.
A collection of some of the bombies that have not exploded.
But Laos also has a startling history. During the Vietnam War, there was a civil war in Laos. America dropped bombs on Laos, partly to cut the supply lines from Laos to Vietnam, and to stop Communism from spreading. Cluster bombs were dropped which were big bombs containing many smaller bombs called “bombies”. 80,000,000 of these bombies did not explode and can still be found scattered around the country. This has been a hazard for decades, since children are attracted to these bombs, which look like small tennis balls. The bombs sometimes can detonate while in children’s hands.
Bourdain talked to victims of the war, and the squads of people trying to clean up the bombs. The show displayed footage of the clean-up teams using metal detectors to search for the bombs, then mark the spot with a flag, and then detonate the bomb, so it wouldn’t explode on it’s own.
Overall, we learnt a lot of information about the country of Laos, it’s fascinating cuisine, and it’s history. Anthony Bourdain does an excellent job on hosting the show and provides education while entertaining the audience.
On Saturday, April 22, thousands of people gathered to march for science in downtown San Diego. Among them were three girls, their Mom and Dad. That group, was our family. We drove from our house to the Mission Valley mall and then took the Metro train to downtown and walked about two blocks to the place where the march started.
Several individuals made speeches before the march started. Scientists from the Scripps Institute of Oceanography spoke about their reasearch on measurements of carbon dioxide in the air, and their work on seeing how much the ocean is warming because of increased carbon dioxide levels. Three middle schoolers presented their award winning science fair projects to the crowd. One girl talked about permeable concrete to help water drainage, and another on preventing water evaporation from storage reservoirs. After the speeches, we marched from the Civic Center to the Waterfront Park near the Maritime Museum.
The march took about an hour. They estimated that about 15,000 people participated in the march. It was loud because people were chanting various slogans. There were a sea of signs, and we had a lot of fun reading them. It was really exciting to be around so many people interested in science. When we finally reached the waterfront park, we listened to several additional speakers who talked about the importance of science and its impact on society. One of the speakers was my dad’s student, Sharon Patray, from the university where he works. She talked about her life experiences as a refugee, and as a marine and how science has helped her succeed in life. She said that she will be starting her Ph.D. at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. Overall, it was an inspiring experience and we learned that science has an impact on almost everything!
I was reading the December 2016 issue of the Scientific American magazine when I came across an interesting article.
Did you know that pigs are raised with feed containing antibiotics? Antibiotics are medicines that get kill bacteria. Most pigs are raised in crowded pens and to keep pigs healthy, farmers feed them antibiotics to prevent bacterial infections. These antibiotics also help animals grow faster with less food.
But the overuse of antibiotics have begun to turn pigs into a harbor for deadly bacteria that are resistant to several classes of antibiotics. These deadly bacteria are known as antibiotic resistant bacteria. Bacteria also spread easily. Bacteria can spread through pig manure, which is used as fertilizer for crops. Farm employees’ spread bacteria through contaminated hands when they handle the pigs. Because bacteria spread easily scientist worry that antibiotic resistant bacteria from pig farms will also spread to other individuals.
The antibiotic-resistant bacteria might be harmful to patients. Many researchers worry that the overuse of antibiotics on farms is decreasing our ability to cure bacterial infections. For example, a woman in Pensylvania was not able to be treated because the bacteria in her infection was resistant to the medicine she was given.
Scientists would like to measure the extent of this problem. They would like to track how antibiotic resistance may spread from farms to people. But big meat companies won’t let researchers on their farms. They argue that they can’t have their pigs around outsiders, which makes it hard for scientists to carry out their research.
There are a few farms, however, who have come up with a solution. The Seven Sons Farms raises it’s hogs in woodlands and pastures without antibiotics. It relies on space to keep their pigs healthy. If a pig does get sick, they feed it antibiotics and auction it off.
Perdue Farms announced that it would not be feeding it’s chickens with antibiotics starting in February 2016. Tyson Foods also claimed that it would raise two thirds of their chickens without antibiotics, starting September 2017.
After reading the article, I think we should reduce the use of antibiotics to keep animals healthy, and instead use a different solution to keep animals from getting sick.
On my twin sisters birthday we went and watched the movie Moana at the theatre. The main character in the movie is a girl named Moana. She lives on an island called Motunui, where her father is the Chief of the village. Her grandmother tells Moana a legend about how the goddess Ti Fiti lost her heart. In the legend someone has to find the demigod Maui who will be able to return the heart of Ti Fiti. In the movie the sea chooses Moana to find Maui and together they return the heart of Ti Fiti and save Moana’s island. Moana and Maui have to go through a lot of adventures to carry out their task. I liked this movie because it was funny and adventurous. My favorite character was Moana because she’s very brave. At one point she goes back and fights the lava monster all by herself. Moana is also very funny. She does and says a lot of funny things to get Maui to join her on the adventure. The moral of the movie is that if you believe in yourself you can do great things. On the scale of one to ten I would rate this movie a 10 because it was a great, funny, and adventurous movie.
My sister Simran and I are part of a First Lego League (FLL) team. The team also includes two of our friends, Brady and Naythan. Our team name is the Cryptic Cookies.
FLL is a two partcompetition and is organized around a theme. The theme for 2016/2017 is Animal Allies. The first part of the competition is to complete a project based on the theme. Our team decided to focus on conserving bats; for our project, we published an iBook titled “Days of Danger: the life of a bat”, which is on sale now for 99 cents in the iTunes Store, and we are also creating a board game to educate kids on bat conservation. All proceeds of the iBook will go to Bat Conservation International, an organization which strives to help conserve bats.
The second part of the competition involves a series of missions to be completed using a Lego robot. This year, we must program our robot to deliver food to Lego animals, collect milk and manure, bring prosthetic legs to a stranded pig, and more.
On my twin sisters birthday we went and watched the movie Moana at the theatre. The main character in the movie is a girl named Moana. She lives on an island called Motunui, where her father is the Chief of the village. Her grandmother tells Moana a legend about how the goddess Ti Fiti lost her heart. In the legend someone has to find the demigod Maui who will be able to return the heart of Ti Fiti. In the movie the sea chooses Moana to find Maui and together they return the heart of Ti Fiti and save Moana’s island. Moana and Maui have to go through a lot of adventures to carry out their task. I liked this movie because it was funny and adventurous. My favorite character was Moana because she’s very brave. At one point she goes back and fights the lava monster all by herself. Moana is also very funny. She does and says a lot of funny things to get Maui to join her on the adventure. The moral of the movie is that if you believe in yourself you can do great things. On the scale of one to ten I would rate this movie a 10 because it was a great, funny, and adventurous movie.
Our team decided to focus on conserving bats; for our project, we published an iBook titled “Days of Danger: the life of a bat”, which is on sale now for 99 cents in the iTunes Store, and we are also creating a board game to educate kids on bat conservation. All proceeds of the iBook will go to Bat Conservation International, an organization which strives to help conserve bats.