Astronomy

I have always loved the stars and can't imagine what they would look like through a telescope.Here is a very good astronomy website, it tells you exactly what stars are in your area and when they will be visible.  
I have been waiting for almost four years now for my mom to fix her telescope but she still hasn't gotten to fixing her telescope.It isn't probably very high on her priority list.Luckily, I have a friend that has a telescope (albeit not a very powerful one) that I love to look through on a clear night. I live in the city so  I can't always see the stars due to light pollution. I would love to someday be able to go out to a place with little light pollution and look though a telescope. I hear that on a clear night in an area with little or no light pollution looks a lot like the pic below (ignore water).

Orangutans

Lately I have been learning about Orangutans, new studies show that Orangutans have 97% of the DNA we do, making them more closely related to us than chimps.Here are some fun facts about them;

• They have an average lifespan of 20-30 years in the wild.
• They range from 100-200 pounds.
• They have extremly long hair.
• There senses are a lot like ours.
• Orangutan literally translates into "man of the forest" in malay.

Today, we went to our local zoo to see them in action. They were so active! One was right up against the glass hitting it with a plastic cone, while the other was wrapped up in a pink blanket and looked like a little old lady!

Genetic disorders: Canavan disease

It has been a while since I last posted,I have been enjoying a two week vacation but now I am back on schedule once again!

For my science I am learning about genetic disorders, one I am specifically working on is called Canavan disease. Genetic disorders like Canavan disease appear when one of the twenty-three pairs of chromosomes in your cells are damaged and or mutated in some form.

Canavan disease is an inherited genetic disease that causes progressive damage to the brain's nerve cells. Canavan disease is grouped with other genetic diseases called leukodystrophies. Leukodystrophies are known for their aggression toward myelin, which is the fatty covering that insulates the brain's nerve cells. 

Nerve cell

Symptoms of Canavan disease begin in early infancy, although the symptoms do not begin until about three to five months of age. Symptoms include:

• Developmental problems for motor skills such as rolling over, being able to sit up without support, and being able to control  head movement
• Unusually large head growth
• Weak muscle tone
• Intellectual difficulties 
• Abnormal posture
• Sleep disturbances
• Feeding and swallowing difficulties



Child afflicted with Canavan disease

• Seizures 

Most afflicted infants do not get to live farther than childhood, but some end up living to adolescence and beyond.

                

So far, there is no known cure for genetic diseases such as Canavan disease,but in the future scientists hope to be able to directly repair, or even replace damaged chromosomes.   

Zoo Trip

Today I went to zoo classes at our zoo. Today, my group were supposed to present a question about an animal, and solve it by using the supplies chosen by us. We came up with the question, Do Tigers like to be on rocks, or on the ground? We used a laser thermometer to see what temperatures the ground and the rocks were. Believe it or not, it was warmer on the rocks (where the majority of the tigers were) than on the ground by about six degrees. 

We also did an ethogram to track what the tigers were doing over a period of time. It turns out that all but one of the tigers were not on the rocks. I also found out that most zoologists will use ethograms to monitor an animals activities.
Overall I found that the tigers tend to stay wherever it is warm. 

BELOW IS AN EXAMPLE OF AN ETHOGRAM

Sink Hole

For my schoolwork I do a subject called current events. It is when I search official news sites for an interesting story to write a summary about. Two days ago I was reading about a sink hole incident on CNN. The people lived in Florida and lived in a place known for its sink holes. Bush, 36, fell into a 20 foot wide and 50 foot deep hole in his bedroom, pretty scary right? He is currently presumed dead

His brother jumped into the hole to look for him, but luckily he made it out OK. Although emotionally he was pretty torn up

The story on CNN is here 

Smash book

Recently, my mom has found these journals called smash books. It is basically a journal that you smash stuff you want to remember in. It is kind of nice that I can do whatever I want to do with the page instead of having a strict code to follow.

It is basically an everything book. You can use whatever you want where every you want without the hassle of having to make it symmetrical . I found some really cool ideas on this site. It is really cool what you can do with a smash book. If you look on Google and type in "smash book ideas" you will find TONS of ideas.

Grass

For a school project my mom went to a seed store to buy some grass and clover seed to grow in our house in little yogurt containers. The guy from the store ended up just giving us two tiny bags full of grass seed for free and one small bag of clover seed.

It took about four days for the topsoil that we bought to unfreeze. Once it unfroze mom planted the seeds. I do not have a green thumb, I even have killed a cactus because I did not water it enough. Who kills a cactus?! I still have the HUGE pot I used to grow it in, so I used that instead of the little yogurt cups.
                                    

What I did is that I put all three seeds in one pot each on a side and see which one thrived the most. So far we don't have any grass yet.

Trip to the Art museum

Today, Tiger and I went on a tour of an art museum. It was really cool to see works from ancient Egypt, to Manet, to Vincent van Gogh. The tour reminded me of an incident that took place not to long ago......

A couple of months ago Tiger, Polar bear, Giraffe, and myself went on a tour similar to the one Tiger and me went to today. During the guide's insentient talking, it was inevitable that they got board. Giraffe finally had enough, and ran to one of the paintings the docent was talking about and poked it. The museum people were NOT happy with us but what would you expect? Since then I have not forgotten how Giraffe touched a one hundred year old painting, I wonder how it felt?

Besides the art museum I made a poem recently. It is 100% original (I hate copycats). 

                                                                  Free like a Sparrow

                                                                               By Ryan Langston, age 12

Seeing a singing sparrow soar though the skies-

Always, brings joyous tears to my eyes,

To gaze to the heavens, as I might try-

To see a spectacle, so carefree, as it flies-

And for it not to worry about evil, and many a lie.

But, here on the land, I will stand-

With nothing to demand.

And yet as my hands are bound,

The world will still go 'round.

I wish nothing more for my story-

Nothing besides to fly free without worry,

Like a sparrow in the sky.

100!

Thank you all so much all so much for visiting this blog! I am very happy that  I have achieved my goal of 100+ page views and hope that there are many more to come. 

Today, we are going to a water park. Everyone is running though the house screaming and asking when we leave. My mom wants the house "Spotless" clean before we leave, I really don't get that.Our preparations include;

• Bathing suits and goggles
• Water bottles
• Pj's
• Day clothes 
• Gluten free bread
• Honey nut Cheerios

We eat a lot of Udi's gluten free products they are so good tasting! Sadly they are so expensive!

I am pretty sure that Honey nut Cheerios have gluten in them but when I tried to tell her she wouldn't have it. We leave today at 1-2 in the afternoon.

I just hope they have a hot tub! :)

Sugar changed the world

Just recently my mom has made me read a book called "Sugar changed the World" It was a good book, it went in great detail about sugar plantations. There was a section of the book that I thought was unnecessary though. My mom made me write a paper on the book. It took me forever to fix all the things that needed to be changed, but in the end  I think it turned out to be a pretty good paper.

What I thought was amusing was that I was learning the same exact thing in history. So some of the information (although not a lot) came from my history lessons. 


                                        SUGAR
                                      by Ryan Langston
Sugar, it is in most of what we eat. It is the driving force that put millions of Africans in chains and sent off to distant lands. Yet it was sugar that let us hear what the slaves had to say about freedom and eventually lead us to believe that ALL men are equal.

Sugar cane (where sugar originates) was said to be first discovered by a Greek captain named Nearchus whom stumbled upon “Sweet reeds” along India's coast around 510 BC while serving Alexander the Great. Long before the Greeks set foot in India, the native people of India first used sugar cane to use in special ceremonies, rituals and even burials.

Years later after the Greeks, sugarcane was used in India to treat injuries. They discovered that sugar was an energy booster.  They made patients eat sugar as well as rub it on wounds. The Sanskrit, (some of whom lived in India) called sugarcane “Khanda” once the word got to England Khanda was turned into “candy”.  The first University in the world used sugar as a large part of medical training.

After that, huge discoveries were being made with sugar. After several years Muslims found a way to mill and refine sugarcane into the powder we now know today as sugar. Yet this was no ordinary sugar, it was brown! While this was happening Egypt became a sugar laboratory, experimenting new ways to use and refine it. After several decades of experimenting the Egyptians found a way to turn the unappetizing brown sugar to nearly pure white. They did this by draining the molasses from out of the sugar several times, making it near pure white.

In Europe, dukes, counts, kings or just wealthy merchants set up fairs. These fairs were focal points for foreign trading in Europe. When Muslim merchants came in with expensive and exotic sugar, trade exploded. Everyone wanted sugar. This new exotic spice was not cheap. In fact, in 1226 even kings had a hard time purchasing just three pounds of sugar. At the time just three pounds of sugar cost an estimated whopping 450 modern dollars. The reason sugar was so expensive was due to the fact  that it was shipped from far away and had gone through several places to refine and whiten it. Anyone who tasted sugar at the time quite literally tasting India, Egypt and everywhere in-between.

After awhile Spain and Portugal got sick of the unfair pricing of the Muslim merchants in the fairs and turned their attention westward. They sent explorers such as Christopher Columbus and Ferdinand Magellan to find a short sea route  to the Indies. They did not find short a route to the Indies, but what they did find is a whole different land full of mysterious creatures and hostile natives. Or more importantly acres upon acres of fertile soil to plant sugar cane.

At first, they used the natives as slaves but after awhile they all died off from disease and beatings. That left only the plantation owners, who did not want to toil in the sugar fields. So they started to trade slaves from Africa. An estimated million and a half slaves died just from the boat ride, not to mention the actual plantations.

After many years the Europeans created a system called the transatlantic slave trade. It starts out as manufactured goods from Europe which then gets traded for slaves in Benin or other African kingdoms. Then the slaves go to places like Brazil, Jamaica or the dreaded Caribbean sugar islands. From there the sugar goes back to Europe in bulk and thus the triangle continues.

Owning a sugar plantation in the 1500s was a very profitable business. So profitable that sugar was in fact called “white gold”. It was the desired job to become a plantation owner. Back then people  did not care about the millions upon millions of slaves who lived the harshest life imaginable and died due to intense beatings, hunger, disease, and overwork.

In 1565, sugar was so common and so inexpensive that even common people could afford this “white gold” compared to 1226 where kings had trouble purchasing just a few pounds. Once the public in Europe had heard of such mistreatment they (although not immediately) began to protest slavery and finally in 1807 a bill was passed in England that all men were equal. In the 1850s, slavery came to an end, but only to rise to a new form of labor, Indenture.
 
In the 1850s people wanted inexpensive labor for their sugar plantations. Indenture was not really freedom but wasn't really slavery. Indentured servitude is when someone convinces you to sign a legally binding contract saying you will work for a good wage and fair hours for a period of one to four years. Most of contract you signed was a lie, what really happened was that they worked like slaves for a really cheap wage, and those who spoke out were immediately eliminated or thrown in jail for violating the contract.  

During this time sugar was going out of business, and merchants were no longer making a profit. So at this point there wasn't much reason to continue the sugar plantations. New things were taking sugars place such as beet sugar which is cheaper to make and does not need so many slaves. This brought an end to the age of sugar.

Sugar was the driving force that caused many good and bad things that have played out over the centuries. It permanently altered our diet, introducing candy and other sweets. It caused some of the biggest movements of people in history. It made us realize the horrors of slavery and it revolutionized farming into plantations. Sugar has made a lasting impression in the world, I guess you could say that sugar changed the world.

I met an artist!

  

Recently, I was at a local bookstore when I saw these wonderful paintings up for sale. They were so vibrant the painting almost looked like it was glowing. Then I met the artist responsible he was really nice and had a kid of his own. He called himself a "starving artist" which really confused me, what it means is that they need to work a job on top of their artistic career to put food in there mouths for those of you that don't know. 

I liked his artwork so much that when I got back home I dug though my change and got (although just barely) ten dollars in change for a print of one of his paintings. After I emailed him that I wanted one his of copies he was so thrilled he added an extra print just because I thought his art was cool, what a nice guy! What was really cool was he personally delivered the copies to our house. He even gave me a few art tips!

Today, after about two weeks of procrastination and after a lot of nagging to get my mom to hang them up. I finally have the copies in frames on the wall in front of my desk. I am so happy! 

Valentines Day

                                                                  Last morning my siblings and I, woke up to a sign on our refrigerator that said:

Happy Valentines Day!
Breakfast; Pink Love Milk!
                        Pink love mix!
                        Oatmeal with love!

It was a nice surprise.The pink love milk (milk with fresh strawberry juice from our juicer) was really good,I just wish she would make it more often! The pink love mix consisted of blueberry craisins, strawberry yogurt covered pretzels (an oddity), chocolate covered pecans, and cinnamon sugar almonds. The mix was really good!

The rest of the day went smoothly, we went to a valentine party at Chuck E Cheese it was fun. I got some tickets, spent them, and just hung out. Polar bear and Giraffe were having a ball shooting spiders and other insects with me on a shooter game! It was so funny!

No More Wheat

It was pretty hard to get weened off of gluten, even though I did not have a choice. One day we stopped putting bread on our sandwiches entirely. It has been years, I kid you not, years since I last have tasted a slice of bread. Before we went on the G.F. diet my mom made me read a book called Wheat Belly, it was actually pretty interesting and explained why gluten is so bad for you. I would suggest this book to anyone who is struggling to stay healthy.

People around me are quizzical when I tell them I don't eat bread products, and kind of roll there eyes when I try to tell them how bad it is for you. 

When  I got most of the wheat out of my diet I started to feel different.Here are some things that I found odd.

• I started to crave sugar and bread less
• I felt sick less often
• I started wanting more  fruits and vegetables
• I felt more energetic

My Diet

So, since there is pretty much no wheat in my diet your probably wondering; "If you don't eat bread then what do you eat?" To answer that question I will first give you a list of things I don't eat.

• Bread
• Spaghetti 
• Dumplings 
• Cookies
• Cake
• Most cereals 
• Pancakes 
• 95% of pop and candy products (unless it is organic and/or all natural)
• Pizza
• Croutons
• Stuffing (most of the time)

The list just goes on and on and on. Now here is a list of things I DO eat.

• Gluten free pizza
• Gluten free bread
• All natural candy and pop products (once in a blue moon)
• Rice noodles
• Gluten free pancakes
• Gluten free dumplings
• Gluten free Cookies 
• Fruits and Vegetables
• Rice, Oats, and Corn
• Eggs, Cheese,and Nuts 

  This is one of my favorite G.F. products

Gluten free bread products are very expensive.Due to the high prices we may only have gluten free treats only once maybe twice a month. Rice does not have gluten in it so it is pretty much a staple for us we may have it twice a week  

Recap

Ok, so I have been sick for almost three weeks now and I am sick of being sick! So much has happened since my last post I really didn't have the time to write much, so now that I have a spare moment I am going to go through what has happened recently.

 First off my family and I went to one of our local library branches to hear a speaker talk about the war of 1812. It was actually pretty interesting learning about the war.

Then we went to a hockey game. My mom got really excited when our team scored a goal because a very loud blow horn would turn on, the first time I heard it I thought it was a boat horn! 

Then our grandpa (which we don't see often) gave us Bey Blades  for our Christmas gifts I think we all played together with the toys for three hours straight, it was a big hit!

 A week ago my mom sent me into a coffee shop with a coupon for a super salted caramel latte, she wanted it breve  whatever that means. I had no idea what half the words she said even meant but all I had to do is go in a get her the coffee on the coupon. So I went up to the counter and the lady there said   "Is there something I can help you with?" I then hesitated and said "Yes,....ummm I    would  like a super breve latte caramel?" the lady at the counter kinda tilted her head at me, "This isn't for you is it?" I replied "Nope, this is for my mom."  Then I waited for the people to make the coffee. From what I saw they looked like they were chemists, putting ingredients from all over the place into the cup. When I got the cup it was so full the coffee looked like it was over the brim. I was about to pick the cup up when a lady said "I would suggest a lid so you don't spill it" I then said back " Yea, that sounds like a great idea! I did not even think that there were any lids, do you know were they are?" "Yes, they are right over there." The lady pointed to a place a couple feet to the left of me. I felt kind of dumb not noticing the station there. When all was said and done I was relived to get out of the weird environment of the coffee shop.

Nature walk

 Today, we went on a nature walk as a follow-up for our schoolwork  about owls. It was actually a pretty nice day out, for winter at least. So once we were arrived our local nature reserve we went to an area in the park called "chipmunk ally" which is basically a huge gully that was filled with dead branches and leaves. We were lucky enough to find a former owl home.After that we went to a little prairie area with tall dead grasses. We searched for paw prints or evidence of an animal, the first thing we found was spotted by Polar Bear the first thing I heard was "Look Look evidence of an animal! Look at the dog poop!" Mom replied, "Well, that certainly is evidence of an animal!" It was a pretty funny moment, and luckily I did not step in any of the scat.

I thought this was a horse shoe but mom begs to differ saying it was "It's some type of weird print from someone's shoe."

My Crazy Day at the Zoo

 Yesterday my siblings and I went to the zoo for the  zoo classes my sister and I attend,but my mom got the wrong date! The classes weren't until next week so we had some time to look around, after all it was a zoo! Since it is winter, hardly anyone was around so we decided to go see the tigers. When we got there the tigers were asleep, but after a few minutes they began to notice us. They got up and walked over to the glass and where licking it right in front of our faces.  So we tried and play with the two tigers by running back and forth. The tigers followed and started to paw at the glass. It was sooo cute and something you NEVER get to see. I got some really cool pics.

Sick days

In my family I am the big brother of three irritating and loving siblings. In this blog  I named them after animals Tiger age 6, Polar bear age 5, and Giraffe age 3. Lately we all have been sick with a mild cough and terrible sore throats. We have been taking lots all natural supplements. We have such a variety of all natural pills and supplements my mom has dedicated almost an entire cupboard to vitamins. These include;

• Raw Garlic 
• Vitamin C
• Vitamin D
• Elder berry
• Probiotics 
• Apple cider vinegar
• Daily vitamins

All of these things are supposed to boost your immune system and help fight infection. 

Today I drank homemade juice from the juicer that had raw garlic, apples, and carrots. It tasted terrible and I couldn't eat anything for a half an hour because it had to digest.