Thursday, March 26, 2015

The lli Pika, Cute and Endangered

http://www.cnn.com/2015/03/23/asia/china-endangered-pika/
lli Pika of China
     In 1983, the lli Pika was discovered by conservationist Li Weidong in the mountains of Xinjiang China. The Pika is a silent, introverted animal that lives in caves of the mountains by itself. The species has been reduced significantly because global warming has forced them to move higher into the mountains. There are now fewer than 2,000 Pikas remaining.


   The Pika is a species that is struggling to survive partly because of us. Global warming has killed them off and we are the main contributors to global warming. CO2 emissions created by us cause global warming. The pika is only one of the things that is being affected by our failure to preserve the Earth. I am not much of an environmentalist, but it would benefit everyone if we could stop producing so many greenhouse gasses and create a new fuel that emits water vapor.



Thursday, March 19, 2015

Myself and Other Things

     Hello there, my name is Ben Bayer and I am a 15 years old. I live out in the suburbs of Omaha (around Bennington to be exact). I am the youngest member of a family of three (two boys and one girl). I love to do many activities and projects, most of them scientific. I love pretty much anything that has to do with science fiction. Don't get me wrong though, I'm not the guy sitting in a basement eating Cheetos and watching Star Wars, I'm more passionate about it (I don't even like Star Wars anyway). I like to write stories and watch different shows that deal with Sci-Fi (StarGate SG-1, Dune, Star Trek, and many more). Science fiction seems to strike a fancy to me, not so much because I like science, but more because of the image it portrays of the future. For instance, traveling beyond earth, curing all diseases, aliens invading earth, and even a world where apes rule supreme. Some people do look at me "differently" if I'm watching something like Star Trek in public because they think it's so "socially awkward" when in reality, I'm just doing what I love. 

   Currently, I am a member of a PR team (Public Relations) for a game called Excalibur that has been in the process of development for over 10 years. Since the game is based on a science fiction game called "Bridge Commander" from 2001, it makes me all the more interested. I played it as a kid and I also watched older shows including: Lost in Space, Star Trek the Original Series, Doctor Who Original, and Gilligan's Island (which is not Sci-Fi, but I loved it anyway) so this game kind of makes me nostalgic. 

     I also love to explore new topics in my free time to expand my knowledge and understanding of different things. Most of the time, I go to nasa.gov to research topics about new things that are being developed, like a cure to aging or even FTL (Faster-Than-Light) travel. Even though I do still love to go outside and play sports or ride my bike, I have a deeper desire for the unknown and new discoveries; after all, on the topic of exploration, Nasa does say that it,  "involves not just science but philosophy, for our answer has to come out of our view of life, out of our concept of history, out of our understanding of human progress, and mostly out of instinctive awareness that we can always do better than we are doing if we emancipate ourselves from our fears in order to search the horizon for new prospects." I am sorry if I ranted too much about science, but if I did have a word to describe myself, it would be have to be "scientific". Well, that's all for today, stay tuned for my latest blogs and look at for any news. Have a nice day!