1.
Indigo dye
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Indigo dye is an organic compound with a distinctive blue color. Historically, indigo was a dye extracted from the leaves of certain plants. A large percentage of indigo dye produced today – several thousand each year – is synthetic. It is the blue often associated with blue jeans, the primary use for indigo is as a dye for cotton yarn, which is mainly for the production of denim cloth for blue jeans. On average, a pair of blue jean trousers requires 3–12 g of indigo, small amounts are used for dyeing wool and silk. Indigo carmine, or indigo, is a derivative which is also used as a colorant. About 20 thousand tons are produced annually, again mainly for blue jeans and it is also used as a food colorant, and is listed in the United States as FD&C Blue No.2. A variety of plants have provided indigo throughout history, but most natural indigo was obtained from those in the genus Indigofera, the primary commercial indigo species in Asia was true indigo. A common alternative used in the relatively colder subtropical locations such as Japans Ryukyu Islands, dyers knotweed was the most important blue dye in East Asia until the arrival of the Indigofera species from the south, which yield more dye. In Central and South America, the species grown is I. suffruticosa, in Europe woad containing the same dye was used for blue-dying. Several plants contain indigo, but low concentrations make them difficult to work with, natural sources also include mollusks, the Murex sea snails produce a mixture of indigo and dibromoindigo which together produce a range of purple hues known as Tyrian purple. Light exposure during part of the process can convert the dibromoindigo into indigo resulting in blue hues known as royal blue or hyacinth purple. The precursor to indigo is indican, a colorless, water-soluble derivative of the amino acid tryptophan, indican readily hydrolyzes to release β-D-glucose and indoxyl. Oxidation by exposure to air converts indoxyl to indigo, indican was obtained from the processing of the plants leaves, which contain as much as 0. 2–0. 8% of this compound. The leaves were soaked in water and fermented to convert the glycoside indican present in the plant to the blue dye indigotin, the precipitate from the fermented leaf solution was mixed with a strong base such as lye, pressed into cakes, dried, and powdered. The powder was mixed with various other substances to produce different shades of blue. Indigo was used in India, which was also the earliest major center for its production, the I. tinctoria species was domesticated in India. Indigo, used as a dye, made its way to the Greeks and the Romans, Indigo is among the oldest dyes to be used for textile dyeing and printing
2.
Conner Prairie
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Conner Prairie was founded by pharmaceutical executive Eli Lilly in the 1930s. Lilly also transferred about 1,400 acres of surrounding farmland to the college with the expectation that Earlham would sell that land and use the proceeds to provide an endowment for the museum. Instead, Earlham elected to retain the farmland and expand the museum, constructing an 1836 village, Prairietown, the museum grew in scope and popularity. In 1992 Earlham created a wholly owned subsidiary to run the museum and appointed a volunteer board of directors. Beginning in 1999, tension began to develop between the board of directors and Earlham regarding the museums governance and the financial policies. The dispute culminated in Earlhams dismissal of the board of directors, Conner Prairie now has its own board of directors and maintains its own finances and endowment fund. In 2009 Conner Prairie became an affiliate in the Smithsonian Affiliations program, on December 17,2010, Conner Prairie was awarded the National Medal for Museum and Library Service and a $10,000 prize in a ceremony at the White House. The living museum opened its newest exhibit in June 2011, the 1863 Civil War Journey, Raid on Indiana documents Morgans Raid with live action, video, and interactive activities. The museum grounds are divided into sections, where different eras in history are recreated to create a kind of living timeline. Staff in historical clothing demonstrate the way early inhabitants in the area lived and they explain their lifestyles in character while performing chores such as cooking, chopping wood, making pottery, and tending to animals. Patrons are often invited to join in the activities, the museums main building, called the Welcome Center, contains the entrance lobby, ticket sales counter, Create. Connect, Discovery Station/Craft Corner indoor play area, banquet hall, and gift shop. The gift shop sells pottery made by the museums costumed staff as well as more conventional souvenirs and it also hosts American Civil War reenactments, Hearthside Suppers, and Christmas holiday events and dinners. Built in 1823, the William Conner House is a two-story Federal style brick house on the edge of the West Fork of the White River. The house is believed to be one of the first brick built in central Indiana. Seven of William and Elizabeth Conners 10 children were born in the home, Conners house was used as the meeting place for the County Commissioners, Circuit Court, and served as a post office in the early days of Hamilton County. Although Conner lived in the house until only 1837, his sons, in the 1860s, Conners Delaware children he had with Mekinges Conner unsuccessfully attempted to gain title to the land. The house continued to be used as a residence by various owners until 1935, when Conners house was purchased by Eli Lilly, Lilly restored the house and turned it into a museum. In 1980, the William Conner House was listed in the National Register of Historic Places, the genuine Conner brick house and barn are preserved as a museum
3.
Light
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Light is electromagnetic radiation within a certain portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. The word usually refers to light, which is visible to the human eye and is responsible for the sense of sight. Visible light is defined as having wavelengths in the range of 400–700 nanometres, or 4.00 × 10−7 to 7.00 × 10−7 m. This wavelength means a range of roughly 430–750 terahertz. The main source of light on Earth is the Sun, sunlight provides the energy that green plants use to create sugars mostly in the form of starches, which release energy into the living things that digest them. This process of photosynthesis provides virtually all the used by living things. Historically, another important source of light for humans has been fire, with the development of electric lights and power systems, electric lighting has effectively replaced firelight. Some species of animals generate their own light, a process called bioluminescence, for example, fireflies use light to locate mates, and vampire squids use it to hide themselves from prey. Visible light, as all types of electromagnetic radiation, is experimentally found to always move at this speed in a vacuum. In physics, the term sometimes refers to electromagnetic radiation of any wavelength. In this sense, gamma rays, X-rays, microwaves and radio waves are also light, like all types of light, visible light is emitted and absorbed in tiny packets called photons and exhibits properties of both waves and particles. This property is referred to as the wave–particle duality, the study of light, known as optics, is an important research area in modern physics. Generally, EM radiation, or EMR, is classified by wavelength into radio, microwave, infrared, the behavior of EMR depends on its wavelength. Higher frequencies have shorter wavelengths, and lower frequencies have longer wavelengths, when EMR interacts with single atoms and molecules, its behavior depends on the amount of energy per quantum it carries. There exist animals that are sensitive to various types of infrared, infrared sensing in snakes depends on a kind of natural thermal imaging, in which tiny packets of cellular water are raised in temperature by the infrared radiation. EMR in this range causes molecular vibration and heating effects, which is how these animals detect it, above the range of visible light, ultraviolet light becomes invisible to humans, mostly because it is absorbed by the cornea below 360 nanometers and the internal lens below 400. Furthermore, the rods and cones located in the retina of the eye cannot detect the very short ultraviolet wavelengths and are in fact damaged by ultraviolet. Many animals with eyes that do not require lenses are able to detect ultraviolet, by quantum photon-absorption mechanisms, various sources define visible light as narrowly as 420 to 680 to as broadly as 380 to 800 nm
4.
Pigment
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A pigment is a material that changes the color of reflected or transmitted light as the result of wavelength-selective absorption. This physical process differs from fluorescence, phosphorescence, and other forms of luminescence, many materials selectively absorb certain wavelengths of light. Materials that humans have chosen and developed for use as pigments usually have properties that make them ideal for coloring other materials. A pigment must have a high tinting strength relative to the materials it colors and it must be stable in solid form at ambient temperatures. For industrial applications, as well as in the arts, permanence, pigments that are not permanent are called fugitive. Fugitive pigments fade over time, or with exposure to light, pigments are used for coloring paint, ink, plastic, fabric, cosmetics, food, and other materials. Most pigments used in manufacturing and the arts are dry colorants. This powder is added to a binder, a neutral or colorless material that suspends the pigment. A distinction is made between a pigment, which is insoluble in its vehicle, and a dye, which either is itself a liquid or is soluble in its vehicle. A colorant can act as either a pigment or a dye depending on the vehicle involved, in some cases, a pigment can be manufactured from a dye by precipitating a soluble dye with a metallic salt. The resulting pigment is called a lake pigment, the term biological pigment is used for all colored substances independent of their solubility. In 2006, around 7.4 million tons of inorganic, organic, asia has the highest rate on a quantity basis followed by Europe and North America. By 2020, revenues will have risen to approx, the global demand on pigments was roughly US$20.5 billion in 2009, around 1. 5-2% up from the previous year. It is predicted to increase in a growth rate in the coming years. The worldwide sales are said to increase up to US$24.5 billion in 2015, pigments appear the colors they are because they selectively reflect and absorb certain wavelengths of visible light. White light is an equal mixture of the entire spectrum of visible light with a wavelength in a range from about 375 or 400 nanometers to about 760 or 780 nm. When this light encounters a pigment, parts of the spectrum are absorbed by the molecules or ions of the pigment, in organic pigments such as diazo or phthalocyanine compounds the light is absorbed by the conjugated systems of double bonds in the molecule. Some of the inorganic pigments such as vermilion or cadmium yellow absorb light by transferring an electron from the ion to the positive ion
5.
Natural dye
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Natural dyes are dyes or colorants derived from plants, invertebrates, or minerals. The majority of natural dyes are vegetable dyes from plant sources—roots, berries, bark, leaves, archaeologists have found evidence of textile dyeing dating back to the Neolithic period. In China, dyeing with plants, barks and insects has been traced more than 5,000 years. The essential process of dyeing changed little over time, typically, the dye material is put in a pot of water and then the textiles to be dyed are added to the pot, which is heated and stirred until the color is transferred. Textile fibre may be dyed before spinning, but most textiles are yarn-dyed or piece-dyed after weaving, many mordants, and some dyes themselves, produce strong odors, and large-scale dyeworks were often isolated in their own districts. Plant-based dyes such as woad, indigo, saffron, and madder were raised commercially and were important trade goods in the economies of Asia, across Asia and Africa, patterned fabrics were produced using resist dyeing techniques to control the absorption of color in piece-dyed cloth. Dyes such as cochineal and logwood were brought to Europe by the Spanish treasure fleets, the discovery of man-made synthetic dyes in the mid-19th century triggered a long decline in the large-scale market for natural dyes. Natural dyeing techniques are preserved by artisans in traditional cultures around the world. In the early 21st century, the market for natural dyes in the industry is experiencing a resurgence. Western consumers have become concerned about the health and environmental impact of synthetic dyes in manufacturing. The European Union, for example, has encouraged Indonesian batik cloth producers to switch to natural dyes to improve their market in Europe. Protein fibres require vat, acid, or indirect/mordant dyes, that require a bonding agent, each synthetic fibre requires its own dyeing method, for example, nylon requires acid, disperse and pigment dyes, rayon acetate requires disperse dyes, and so on. The earliest surviving evidence of textile dyeing was found at the large Neolithic settlement at Çatalhöyük in southern Anatolia, polychrome or multicolored fabrics seem to have been developed in the 3rd or 2nd millennium BCE. Textiles with a warp and an ochre-yellow weft were discovered in Egyptian pyramids of the Sixth Dynasty. His contributions to refining the process and his theories on colour brought much praise by the well known poet. Some dyestuffs, such as indigo and lichens, will give good color when used alone, the majority of plant dyes, however, also require the use of a mordant, a chemical used to fix the color in the textile fibres. These dyes are called adjective dyes, by using different mordants, dyers can often obtain a variety of colors and shades from the same dye. Fibres or cloth may be pretreated with mordants, or the mordant may be incorporated in the dyebath, salt helps to fix or increase fastness of colors, vinegar improves reds and purples, and the ammonia in stale urine assists in the fermentation of indigo dyes
6.
Root
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In vascular plants, the root is the organ of a plant that typically lies below the surface of the soil. Roots can also be aerial or aerating, that is growing up above the ground or especially above water, furthermore, a stem normally occurring below ground is not exceptional either. Therefore, the root is best defined as the non-leaf, non-nodes bearing parts of the plants body, however, important internal structural differences between stems and roots exist. The fossil record of roots – or rather, infilled voids where roots rotted after death – spans back to the late Silurian and their identification is difficult, because casts and molds of roots are so similar in appearance to animal burrows. They can be discriminated using a range of features, the first root that comes from a plant is called the radicle. In response to the concentration of nutrients, roots also synthesise cytokinin, Roots often function in storage of food and nutrients. The roots of most vascular plant species enter into symbiosis with fungi to form mycorrhizae. In its simplest form, the root architecture refers to the spatial configuration of a plant’s root system. This system can be complex and is dependent upon multiple factors such as the species of the plant itself, the composition of the soil. The configuration of root systems serves to support the plant, compete with other plants. Roots grow to specific conditions, which, if changed, can impede a plants growth. For example, a system that has developed in dry soil may not be as efficient in flooded soil, yet plants are able to adapt to other changes in the environment. Root architecture plays the important role of providing a supply of nutrients and water as well as anchorage. The main terms used to classify the architecture of a system are, Branch magnitude. Root angle, the angle of a lateral root’s base around the parent root’s circumference, the angle of a lateral root from its parent root. Link radius, the diameter of a root, all components of the root architecture are regulated through a complex interaction between genetic responses and responses due to environmental stimuli. These developmental stimuli are categorised as intrinsic, the genetic and nutritional influences, or extrinsic, the main hormones and respective pathways responsible for root architecture development include, Auxin – Auxin promotes root initiation, root emergence and primary root elongation. Cytokinins – Cytokinins regulate root apical meristem size and promote lateral root elongation, gibberellins – Together with ethylene they promote crown primordia growth and elongation
7.
Berry
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In everyday language, a berry is a small, pulpy, and often edible fruit. Berries are usually juicy, rounded, brightly colored, sweet or sour, common examples are strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, and red- and blackcurrants. In Britain, soft fruit is a term for such fruits. The scientific usage of the term differs from common usage. In scientific terminology, a berry is a fruit produced from the ovary of a flower in which the outer layer of the ovary wall develops into an edible fleshy portion. The definition includes many fruits that are not commonly known as berries, such as grapes, tomatoes, cucumbers, eggplants, fruits excluded by the botanical definition include strawberries, raspberries, and blackberries, which are aggregate fruits. A plant bearing berries is said to be bacciferous or baccate, while many berries are edible, some are poisonous to humans, such as deadly nightshade and pokeweed. Others, such as the white mulberry, red mulberry, and elderberry, are poisonous when unripe, berries are eaten worldwide and often used in jams, preserves, cakes or pies. The berry industry varies from country to country as do types of cultivated or growing in the wild. Berries have been valuable as a source for humans since before the start of agriculture. They were a staple for early hunter-gatherers for thousands of years. In time, humans learned to store berries so that they could be used in the winter and they may be made into fruit preserves, and among Native Americans, mixed with meat and fats as pemmican. Berries also began to be cultivated in Europe and other countries, in Japan, between the 10th and 18th centuries, the term ichibigo referred to many berry crops. The most widely cultivated berry of modern times, however, is the strawberry, the strawberry was mentioned by ancient Romans, who thought it had medicinal properties, but it was then not a staple of agriculture. Woodland strawberries began to be grown in French gardens in the 14th century, the musky-flavored strawberry began to be grown in European gardens in the late 16th century. Later, the Virginia strawberry was grown in Europe and the United States, the most commonly consumed strawberry, the garden strawberry, is an accidental hybrid of the Virginia strawberry and a Chilean variety Fragaria chiloensis. Soon after, Antoine Nicolas Duchesne began to study the breeding of strawberries and made several discoveries crucial to the science of plant breeding, such as the sexual reproduction of strawberry. A form of the berry is found in all the Germanic languages, for example, Old English berie compares with Old Saxon and Old High German beri
8.
Leaf
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A leaf is an organ of a vascular plant and is the principal lateral appendage of the stem. The leaves and stem together form the shoot, Leaves are collectively referred to as foliage, as in autumn foliage. Although leaves can be seen in different shapes, sizes and textures, typically a leaf is a thin, dorsiventrally flattened organ, borne above ground. Most leaves have distinctive upper surface and lower surface that differ in colour, hairiness, broad, flat leaves with complex venation are known as megaphylls and the species that bear them, the majority, as broad-leaved or megaphyllous plants. In others, such as the clubmosses, with different evolutionary origins, some leaves, such as bulb scales are not above ground, and in many aquatic species the leaves are submerged in water. Succulent plants often have thick juicy leaves, but some leaves are without major photosynthetic function and may be dead at maturity, as in some cataphylls, furthermore, several kinds of leaf-like structures found in vascular plants are not totally homologous with them. Examples include flattened plant stems called phylloclades and cladodes, and flattened leaf stems called phyllodes which differ from both in their structure and origin. Many structures of plants, such as the phyllids of mosses and liverworts and even of some foliose lichens. Leaves are the most important organs of most vascular plants and these are then further processed by chemical synthesis into more complex organic molecules such as cellulose, the basic structural material in plant cell walls. The plant must therefore bring these three together in the leaf for photosynthesis to take place. Once sugar has been synthesized, it needs to be transported to areas of growth such as the plant shoots and roots. Vascular plants transport sucrose in a tissue called the phloem. The phloem and xylem are parallel to each other but the transport of materials is usually in opposite directions. Within the leaf these vascular systems branch to form veins which supply as much as the leaf as possible and they are arranged on the plant so as to expose their surfaces to light as efficiently as possible without shading each other, but there are many exceptions and complications. For instance plants adapted to windy conditions may have pendent leaves, such as in many willows, the flat, or laminar, shape also maximises thermal contact with the surrounding air, promoting cooling. Functionally, in addition to photosynthesis the leaf is the site of transpiration and guttation. Many gymnosperms have thin needle-like or scale-like leaves that can be advantageous in cold climates with frequent snow and these are interpreted as reduced from megaphyllous leaves of their Devonian ancestors. For xerophytes the major constraint is not light flux or intensity, some window plants such as Fenestraria species and some Haworthia species such as Haworthia tesselata and Haworthia truncata are examples of xerophytes. and Bulbine mesembryanthemoides
9.
Wood
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Wood is a porous and fibrous structural tissue found in the stems and roots of trees, and other woody plants. It is a material, a natural composite of cellulose fibers which are strong in tension embedded in a matrix of lignin which resists compression. Wood is sometimes defined as only the secondary xylem in the stems of trees, in a living tree it performs a support function, enabling woody plants to grow large or to stand up by themselves. It also conveys water and nutrients between the leaves, other growing tissues, and the roots, Wood may also refer to other plant materials with comparable properties, and to material engineered from wood, or wood chips or fiber. In 2005, the stock of forests worldwide was about 434 billion cubic meters. As an abundant, carbon-neutral renewable resource, woody materials have been of intense interest as a source of renewable energy, in 1991 approximately 3.5 billion cubic meters of wood were harvested. Dominant uses were for furniture and building construction, a 2011 discovery in the Canadian province of New Brunswick discovered the earliest known plants to have grown wood, approximately 395 to 400 million years ago. Wood can be dated by carbon dating and in species by dendrochronology to make inferences about when a wooden object was created. People have used wood for millennia for many purposes, primarily as a fuel or as a material for making houses, tools, weapons, furniture, packaging, artworks. Constructions using wood date back ten thousand years, buildings like the European Neolithic long house were made primarily of wood. Recent use of wood has changed by the addition of steel. The year-to-year variation in tree-ring widths and isotopic abundances gives clues to the climate at that time. This process is known as growth, it is the result of cell division in the vascular cambium, a lateral meristem. These cells then go on to form thickened secondary cell walls, composed mainly of cellulose, hemicellulose, if the distinctiveness between seasons is annual, these growth rings are referred to as annual rings. Where there is little seasonal difference growth rings are likely to be indistinct or absent, if the bark of the tree has been removed in a particular area, the rings will likely be deformed as the plant overgrows the scar. It is usually lighter in color than that near the portion of the ring. The outer portion formed later in the season is known as the latewood or summerwood. However, there are differences, depending on the kind of wood
10.
Fungus
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A fungus is any member of the group of eukaryotic organisms that includes microorganisms such as yeasts and molds, as well as the more familiar mushrooms. These organisms are classified as a kingdom, Fungi, which is separate from the other eukaryotic life kingdoms of plants, a characteristic that places fungi in a different kingdom from plants, bacteria and some protists, is chitin in their cell walls. Similar to animals, fungi are heterotrophs, they acquire their food by absorbing dissolved molecules, growth is their means of mobility, except for spores, which may travel through the air or water. Fungi are the principal decomposers in ecological systems and this fungal group is distinct from the structurally similar myxomycetes and oomycetes. The discipline of biology devoted to the study of fungi is known as mycology, in the past, mycology was regarded as a branch of botany, although it is now known fungi are genetically more closely related to animals than to plants. Abundant worldwide, most fungi are inconspicuous because of the size of their structures. Fungi include symbionts of plants, animals, or other fungi and they may become noticeable when fruiting, either as mushrooms or as molds. Fungi perform a role in the decomposition of organic matter and have fundamental roles in nutrient cycling. Since the 1940s, fungi have been used for the production of antibiotics, Fungi are also used as biological pesticides to control weeds, plant diseases and insect pests. Many species produce bioactive compounds called mycotoxins, such as alkaloids and polyketides, the fruiting structures of a few species contain psychotropic compounds and are consumed recreationally or in traditional spiritual ceremonies. Fungi can break down manufactured materials and buildings, and become significant pathogens of humans, losses of crops due to fungal diseases or food spoilage can have a large impact on human food supplies and local economies. The fungus kingdom encompasses a diversity of taxa with varied ecologies, life cycle strategies. However, little is known of the biodiversity of Kingdom Fungi. Advances in molecular genetics have opened the way for DNA analysis to be incorporated into taxonomy, phylogenetic studies published in the last decade have helped reshape the classification within Kingdom Fungi, which is divided into one subkingdom, seven phyla, and ten subphyla. The English word fungus is directly adopted from the Latin fungus, used in the writings of Horace, a group of all the fungi present in a particular area or geographic region is known as mycobiota, e. g. the mycobiota of Ireland. Like plants, fungi grow in soil and, in the case of mushrooms, form conspicuous fruit bodies. The fungi are now considered a kingdom, distinct from both plants and animals, from which they appear to have diverged around one billion years ago. Fungi have membrane-bound cytoplasmic organelles such as mitochondria, sterol-containing membranes and they have a characteristic range of soluble carbohydrates and storage compounds, including sugar alcohols, disaccharides, and polysaccharides
