Miracles in birds

2 thousand million years ago, insects were the only kind animal which can fly. Actually, they are the best flyers in the past and present. However, there was a kind of animal like lizards gave up their ancient way to move but chose a totally different way to move, to fly. But at first, feathers hadn’t been developed. Involucra were the only thing which could be wings. As time passed by, feathers have been developed and it can correct some mistakes which involucra couldn’t. In 1861, people found Archeopteryx fossils. They are the oldest fossils in history. Archeopteryx lived about one thousand five hundred million years ago and that was the time which was controlled by dinosaurs and pterosaurs. When dinosaurs were disappeared 65 million years ago, birds survived and they, as a new kind of lucky creatures, started their wonderful lives to now. There are more than 9 thousand kinds of birds flying in the sky right now. Some of them are as heavy as 125 kilos and some of them are as light as 1.6 grams. The biggest bird is ostrich while the smallest one is humming bird. An ostrich is 80 thousand times as heavy as a humming bird. Because birds can fly, their living areas are very wide. From Arctic ice lands to rainforest, you can almost find them everywhere and I think it will be interesting to study on birds.

Why can birds fly? That was a question in ancient time, many people tried to find the answer. Modern science study has found that birds’ wings are light, strong and flexible. When birds wing, they can be slowly suspended in the air. Though this thought is not exactly correct, it means the air lifts birds up when they wing and birds use the knowledge about the relationship between pressure and the speed of movement of fluid. That’s about physics. That’s also the simplest explanation about the secrets of birds’ flight. A famous artist and scientist called Leonardo da Vinci once invented a device which he thought can use to fly. But it seems like too heavy.

The postures of birds’ flying are different and amazing. They can be flying and stop in the air, fly flat, go towards without winging. They can fly in thousands of styles. The nests made by birds could be found almost everywhere in the past but now they can’t be found so easily. Sometimes the birds will have their nests at the edge of the roof of a tall building because I think they want to get a feeling like living in a tall tree just like their ancestors. The materials of their nests is a variety of natural works such as soil, rice, leaves, needles and branches. Sometimes birds live in the modern city will use the materials made by human beings such as ropes, silver papers or paper handkerchiefs. They are very clever. Actually, the nests sometimes are full of feathers. So a bird-style house has been done.

Now let’s talk about the process of birds’ hatching. When the little bird is ready for seeing the sunshine, it will use its hard beak to break a hole on its egg and get out of it. It usually lasts about half an hour and it’s really exciting. When the bird gets out of an egg, it is still a little wet and we can see its feathers sticky. But a little moment later, it will grow dry and the little bird will try to start standing and moving. Some kind of birds like goose considers the first moving thing its mother. That’s really funny and they will even follow it very closely!

Overall, the world of birds is wide and won’t be ended. They will exist as an independent species.

(By Richard Bu)

(Nature Channel Special made)

The beginning of human beings

Who am I? Where do I come from? It’s the most difficult question in the world I think. I like reading Bible, because it tells me so much not only People’s history but some reasons for us to live on Earth.

It is said that there’s nothing in space fifteen billion years ago. It now has been confirmed. God created anything for space, Earth and lives. It hasn’t been confirmed yet. As time passed away, human beings were cleverer and cleverer. They used tools made of wood, stone and metal. They walked from monkey’s style to being standing. It’s a great progress for us! If we did not stand but still have a life like a monkey, we wouldn’t create so many wonderful and long great civilizations. I admire us for the great achievements.

I think the most attractive civilization belongs to Egyptians. Nile is a great river lying on the endless plain in East Africa. It made the great Egyptian civilization in some way. Without her help, the local people wouldn’t develop so strongly and gloriously. 20 thousand BC, the ancient people started living there by hunting and collecting food. The oasis welcomed her first citizens at about 10 thousand BC. It has been a beautiful home for Egyptians 6 or 7 thousand years ago. At that time, Egyptians were strong and their lives were very hard. They made bricks with soil and their houses were not stable. In the daytime, the female cooked meals with ancient cookers and the male hunted wild animals and grazed sheep or other livestock. And what the most important was that they grew crops. In this way, they had a continuous incoming of food and other daily necessities.

You know, the weather there was very bad. It was dry and hot. There were going to be sandstorms regularly every year. Usually, the sandstorm lasted about 50 days and the people there were just in prayer during the terrible days with sandstorms.

Also, Egyptians were crazy about religion. They have their own Gods, but you know, they were all about their lives and Nile. Because to live on was the most important thing at that time. Because of the conditions about their natural and cultural were totally different, there used to be many states in Egypt. You can imagine that what would happen highly possible? Yes, it is war. It seems that wars have been the most attractive activity for the ancient people to snatch their farmlands or wealth. Unfortunately, Egyptians couldn’t get rid of it. Wars between different villages or states often happened because of the arguments on the problems of their religions or land. Egypt hadn’t been a whole union until Menes brought his army to capture Under Egypt at about 3200 BC. Upper Egypt used Soutar tree as its sign and Under Egypt used bee as its sign. After Menes had ruled the whole Egypt, he became the first king of Egypt dynasty. To manage the kingdom more conveniently, Menes moved his hometown to Mengfeishi, a town at the north-south border areas.

Egypt itself wasn’t lucky too. It had been occupied by Libya, Assyrian, Persian Empire, Macedonia, and Rome Empire. But Egyptians’ spirit of creation and passion can’t be occupied.

The Ancient Egypt’s history was glorious and incredible. One of the seven wonders in the world is pyramids. It is really majestic and wonderful. It can be remarked into the human’s history. Though the Egypt civilization was very old and it has been destroyed now, we still put this into our memory.

                                                                                                                           (By Richard Bu)

                                                                                                                           (History Channel Special made)

Battle between justice and evil

He was standing there, taking a glance at the scene, which showed his results.

He was a general, with tens of years of battling, not believing what he had seen. No one could explain to him what exactly happened to his favorite motherland. A quarter passed, he went to the heaven without any tears in his eyes while they were open. A wind with heavy sands had come, people couldn’t believe that it was that at last because they had been fighting for so long and there was no reason that they lost. As they thought that, only God could explain and help them.

“General, the Map 45 Army has arrived, are we going to warn them?”

“No, it will be silly of us not to let them go into our zone.”

“But why?”

“You will understand, an idea has been formed in my mind. We will give them a good lesson soon.”

“I’m waiting for your orders, General.” When his assistant went out of his office, he looked at the screen for a moment. Red represented the enemies and blue represented us, he preferred to consider them victorious. However, it couldn’t be so easy for them to get success and their enemies are not bitches.

“Thank you for allowing me to talk about my battle plan. First, I think we should bring our troops to the Z47 Zone. It is a best place for our people to build settlements. Wherever they will arrive, Z47 will be the best. Second, about the number of our army, it can’t be a great number as we will have a great number of victims. We need to consider another plan which needs few soldiers.”

“You mean to have a troop of robots?” One member of their organization asked.

“I appreciate your wisdom but I think we should have this war right now not 100 years later.”

“So you want to…”

“I want to use our spy satellites and I know there is some kind of wonderful weapons on them. I am sure you will give me this chance.”

“No, no, no. It’s impossible for you to use them because you don’t have the certificate from Defense Building. The guys there will do this project.”

“OK, if you don’t want us to win and are you willing to see a heavy rain with cats and dogs with bombs? Nuclear bombs.”

“Yes, I’d love to if our spy satellites can destroy them.”

“You don’t trust me.”

“No?”  And the meeting ended in a terrible atmosphere.

Their defense seemed very stable and no one can shake them. It was surprising for their enemies to see that they were going to that zone. They didn’t understand what the general was doing to his army. But they could feel a strange feeling.

“Now the big war is going to start. I have ordered that our spy satellites will show their laser to welcome our enemy buddies.” He didn’t mind the laughs from the audience. He has it now, from Defense Building.

It was a night, a terribly peaceful night when our general was going to have the final battle. There was no wind, no moonlight or birds. It could be a heaven or a hell. Joking or kidding was not useful to break such an atmosphere at that time. He decided, now, he wanted to prove that he could beat them since he could get a paper from Defense Building. However, I don’t know if he wanted to be a stupid person, how dare he not accept the information from our agents. Maybe he was just too nervous or he didn’t want to show his weakness to the public. Whatever it was, he would make a terrible mistake he had never thought of before. But he soon realized.

“Report, Sir, our computer commanding system is being broken into and attacked. The exports are working to figure out the cause but right now we couldn’t use laser at least for about 3 hours.”

Tell you the truth, it was a really attack to himself. He was suddenly very uneasy.

“Report, Sir, the enemies are marching here and part of our areas are being beated. By the way, It seems that they are trying to attack our electronic system.”

At that moment, he just felt that that soldier was just like a machine, a telling-bad-news machine. He kept calm and he knew the basement can’t be found so quickly. He tried to make soldiers to destroy their attack and it nearly worked. Because of highly technologies, he couldn’t make his soldiers “war-fighter”. He thought of X-Files and so on. It was very amusing for him.

A piece of early sunlight shone on our broken establishments and basements and soldiers’ bodies. That was a really sad situation that you couldn’t help being sympathetic for them and for this battle. You know, I can prove that general had given all his effort to this battle and he is just some kind of victim for his governors.

He thought Scully was beautiful until the end.           

                                        By Richard Bu

(Story Channel Special made)