Bayer trip and troglodytes!

On Wednesday, our group went to the Bayer headquarters in Leverkusen, a city slightly between Cologne and Dusseldorf. This was a fascinating trip, as I actually only knew very little about the company before I arrived to the headquarters that day, other than that they produced aspirin!

When we arrived, we were greeted by a very sophisticated and slightly pedantic tour guide who knew a lot about what he was talking about. As we walked around the facilities, I learned much about the company, such as they are invested in crop science, plastic production, pharmaceutical production, as well as some other fields of investment. I was particularly interested in the fact that they are so involved with crop sciences, as one of their main focuses is to be able to advance crop science, as the need for more efficient crops and cultivation will be greatly needed in the future with Earth's booming population. Also, Bayer had a presentation about how they are helping Indonesian farmers to plant genetically enhanced rice that requires less water to sustain, and less attention to maintain, compared to the water fields that used to grow rice in Indonesia. I thought this was a really neat thing for Bayer to be doing, almost a philanthropic project, so I decided to ask the tour guide if the company was benefitting in any other way than from simple satisfaction of carrying out good deeds? The reply was partially yes, that Bayer does want to see their products help a country feed itself, but also, that this investment would pay future dividends... clever Bayer, clever. We toured around the amazing facilities some more and saw some really cool and high tech assembly line machines that were just so fascinating to see. You know you're an engineer when you think about what kind of algorithm the machines were using to sort and pack the medical pouches! 

The machine looked a little like this, but smaller and not carrying a man around on the arm, although I bet he is having a smashing time.

After Bayer, we went to Dusseldorf and into the valley of Neander, where the first Neanderthal bones were discovered. The museum we visited that is dedicated to that fact was pretty interesting and we were able to show off our physiology smarts to the tour guide when we were analyzing certain aspects of the Neanderthal anatomy. Even better, though, was we got AIB ice cream afterwards! Whoop for free food!

ttyl yall! and can't wait for chilifest tomorrow!!1!