1.
Hygrometer
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A hygrometer /haɪˈɡrɒmᵻtər/ is an instrument used for measuring the moisture content in the atmosphere. Humidity measurement instruments usually rely on measurements of some other quantity such as temperature, pressure, by calibration and calculation, these measured quantities can lead to a measurement of humidity. Modern electronic devices use temperature of condensation, or changes in electrical capacitance or resistance to measure humidity differences, the first crude hygrometer was invented by Leonardo da Vinci in 1480 and a more modern version was created by polymath Johann Heinrich Lambert in 1755. The metal-paper coil hygrometer is very useful for giving an indication of humidity changes. It appears most often in very inexpensive devices, and its accuracy is limited, in these devices, water vapour is absorbed by a salt-impregnated paper strip attached to a metal coil, causing the coil to change shape. These changes cause an indication on a dial and these devices use a human or animal hair under tension. The hair is hygroscopic, its length changes with humidity, in the late 1700s, such devices were called by some scientists hygroscopes, that word is no longer in current use, but hygroscopic and hygroscopy, which derive from it, still are. The traditional folk art known as a weather house works on this principle. Whale bone and other materials may be used in place of hair, in 1783, Swiss physicist and geologist Horace Bénédict de Saussure built the first hair-tension hygrometer using human hair. The pulley is connected to an index which moves over a graduated scale, the instrument can be made more sensitive by removing oils from the hair, such as by first soaking the hair in diethyl ether. A psychrometer, or wet-and-dry-bulb thermometer, consists of two thermometers, one that is dry and one that is kept moist with distilled water on a sock or wick. When the air temperature is below freezing, however, the wet-bulb is covered with a coating of ice. Relative humidity is computed from the ambient temperature as shown by the dry-bulb thermometer, relative humidity can also be determined by locating the intersection of the wet and dry-bulb temperatures on a psychrometric chart. The two thermometers coincide when the air is saturated, and the greater the difference the drier the air. Psychrometers are commonly used in meteorology, and in the HVAC industry for proper refrigerant charging of residential and commercial air conditioning systems, a whirling psychrometer uses the same principle, but the two thermometers are fitted into a device that resembles a ratchet or football rattle. Dew point is the temperature at which a sample of moist air at constant pressure reaches water vapor saturation, at this saturation temperature, further cooling results in condensation of water. Chilled mirror dewpoint hygrometers are some of the most precise instruments commonly available and they use a chilled mirror and optoelectronic mechanism to detect condensation on the mirrors surface. The temperature of the mirror is controlled by electronic feedback to maintain an equilibrium between evaporation and condensation, thus closely measuring the dew point temperature
2.
Water
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Water is a transparent and nearly colorless chemical substance that is the main constituent of Earths streams, lakes, and oceans, and the fluids of most living organisms. Its chemical formula is H2O, meaning that its molecule contains one oxygen, Water strictly refers to the liquid state of that substance, that prevails at standard ambient temperature and pressure, but it often refers also to its solid state or its gaseous state. It also occurs in nature as snow, glaciers, ice packs and icebergs, clouds, fog, dew, aquifers, Water covers 71% of the Earths surface. It is vital for all forms of life. Only 2. 5% of this water is freshwater, and 98. 8% of that water is in ice and groundwater. Less than 0. 3% of all freshwater is in rivers, lakes, and the atmosphere, a greater quantity of water is found in the earths interior. Water on Earth moves continually through the cycle of evaporation and transpiration, condensation, precipitation. Evaporation and transpiration contribute to the precipitation over land, large amounts of water are also chemically combined or adsorbed in hydrated minerals. Safe drinking water is essential to humans and other even though it provides no calories or organic nutrients. There is a correlation between access to safe water and gross domestic product per capita. However, some observers have estimated that by 2025 more than half of the population will be facing water-based vulnerability. A report, issued in November 2009, suggests that by 2030, in developing regions of the world. Water plays an important role in the world economy, approximately 70% of the freshwater used by humans goes to agriculture. Fishing in salt and fresh water bodies is a source of food for many parts of the world. Much of long-distance trade of commodities and manufactured products is transported by boats through seas, rivers, lakes, large quantities of water, ice, and steam are used for cooling and heating, in industry and homes. Water is an excellent solvent for a variety of chemical substances, as such it is widely used in industrial processes. Water is also central to many sports and other forms of entertainment, such as swimming, pleasure boating, boat racing, surfing, sport fishing, Water is a liquid at the temperatures and pressures that are most adequate for life. Specifically, at atmospheric pressure of 1 bar, water is a liquid between the temperatures of 273.15 K and 373.15 K
3.
Natural environment
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The natural environment encompasses all living and non-living things occurring naturally. The term is most often applied to the Earth or some part of Earth and this environment encompasses the interaction of all living species, climate, weather, and natural resources that affect human survival and economic activity. Even acts which seem less extreme, such as building a mud hut or a system in the desert. Though many animals build things to provide an environment for themselves, they are not human, hence beaver dams. People seldom find absolutely natural environments on Earth, and naturalness usually varies in a continuum, more precisely, we can consider the different aspects or components of an environment, and see that their degree of naturalness is not uniform. If, for instance, in a field, the mineralogic composition and the structure of its soil are similar to those of an undisturbed forest soil. Natural environment is used as a synonym for habitat. For instance, when we say that the environment of giraffes is the savanna. Earth science generally recognizes 4 spheres, the lithosphere, the hydrosphere, the atmosphere, and the biosphere as correspondent to rocks, water, air, and life respectively. Some scientists include, as part of the spheres of the Earth, Earth science, is an all-embracing term for the sciences related to the planet Earth. There are four major disciplines in sciences, namely geography, geology, geophysics. These major disciplines use physics, chemistry, biology, chronology, the Earths crust, or lithosphere, is the outermost solid surface of the planet and is chemically and mechanically different from underlying mantle. It has been generated greatly by igneous processes in which magma cools, beneath the lithosphere lies the mantle which is heated by the decay of radioactive elements. The mantle though solid is in a state of rheic convection and this convection process causes the lithospheric plates to move, albeit slowly. The resulting process is known as plate tectonics, volcanoes result primarily from the melting of subducted crust material or of rising mantle at mid-ocean ridges and mantle plumes. An ocean is a body of saline water, and a component of the hydrosphere. Approximately 71% of the Earths surface is covered by ocean, a body of water that is customarily divided into several principal oceans. More than half of area is over 3,000 meters deep
4.
Sugar
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Sugar is the generic name for sweet, soluble carbohydrates, many of which are used in food. There are various types of derived from different sources. Simple sugars are called monosaccharides and include glucose, fructose, the table sugar or granulated sugar most customarily used as food is sucrose, a disaccharide of glucose and fructose. Sugar is used in prepared foods and it is added to some foods, in the body, sucrose is hydrolysed into the simple sugars fructose and glucose. Other disaccharides include maltose from malted grain, and lactose from milk, longer chains of sugars are called oligosaccharides or polysaccharides. Some other chemical substances, such as glycerol may also have a sweet taste, low-calorie food substitutes for sugar, described as artificial sweeteners, include aspartame and sucralose, a chlorinated derivative of sucrose. Sugars are found in the tissues of most plants and are present in sufficient concentrations for efficient commercial extraction in sugarcane, the world production of sugar in 2011 was about 168 million tonnes. The average person consumes about 24 kilograms of sugar each year, equivalent to over 260 food calories per person, since the latter part of the twentieth century, it has been questioned whether a diet high in sugars, especially refined sugars, is good for human health. Sugar has been linked to obesity, and suspected of, or fully implicated as a cause in the occurrence of diabetes, cardiovascular disease, dementia, macular degeneration, the etymology reflects the spread of the commodity. The English word sugar ultimately originates from the Sanskrit शर्करा, via Arabic سكر as granular or candied sugar, the contemporary Italian word is zucchero, whereas the Spanish and Portuguese words, azúcar and açúcar, respectively, have kept a trace of the Arabic definite article. The Old French word is zuchre and the contemporary French, sucre, the earliest Greek word attested is σάκχαρις. The English word jaggery, a brown sugar made from date palm sap or sugarcane juice, has a similar etymological origin – Portuguese jagara from the Sanskrit शर्करा. Sugar has been produced in the Indian subcontinent since ancient times and it was not plentiful or cheap in early times and honey was more often used for sweetening in most parts of the world. Originally, people chewed raw sugarcane to extract its sweetness, sugarcane was a native of tropical South Asia and Southeast Asia. Different species seem to have originated from different locations with Saccharum barberi originating in India and S. edule, one of the earliest historical references to sugarcane is in Chinese manuscripts dating back to 8th century BC that state that the use of sugarcane originated in India. Sugar was found in Europe by the 1st century AD, but only as an imported medicine and it is a kind of honey found in cane, white as gum, and it crunches between the teeth. It comes in lumps the size of a hazelnut, sugar is used only for medical purposes. Sugar remained relatively unimportant until the Indians discovered methods of turning sugarcane juice into granulated crystals that were easier to store, crystallized sugar was discovered by the time of the Imperial Guptas, around the 5th century AD
5.
Honey
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Honey /ˈhʌni/ is a sugary food substance produced and stored by certain social hymenopteran insects. It is produced from the secretions of plants or insects, such as floral nectar or aphid honeydew, through regurgitation, enzymatic activity. The variety of honey produced by bees is the most well-known, due to its worldwide commercial production. Honey gets its sweetness from the monosaccharides fructose and glucose, and has about the relative sweetness as granulated sugar. It has attractive properties for baking and a distinctive flavor that leads some people to prefer it to sugar. Most microorganisms do not grow in honey, so sealed honey does not spoil, however, honey sometimes contains dormant endospores of the bacterium Clostridium botulinum, which can be dangerous to babies, as it may result in botulism. People who have an immune system should not eat honey because of the risk of bacterial or fungal infection. Although some evidence indicates honey may be effective in treating diseases and other conditions, such as wounds and burns. Providing 64 calories in a serving of one tablespoon equivalent to 1272 kj per 100 g. Honey is generally safe, but may have various, potential adverse effects or interactions with excessive consumption, existing disease conditions, or drugs. Honey use and production have a long and varied history as an ancient activity, depicted in Valencia, in cold weather or when other food sources are scarce, adult and larval bees use stored honey as food. By contriving for bee swarms to nest in man-made hives, people have been able to semidomesticate the insects, Bee digestive enzymes - invertase, amylase, and diastase - and gastric acid hydrolyze sucrose to a mixture of glucose and fructose. The bees work together as a group with the regurgitation and digestion for as long as 20 minutes until the product reaches storage quality. It is then placed in honeycomb cells left unsealed while still high in content and natural yeasts. The bees then cap the cells with wax to seal them, as removed from the hive by a beekeeper, honey has a long shelf life and will not ferment if properly sealed. Another source of honey is from a number of species, such as the wasps Brachygastra lecheguana and Brachygastra mellifica. These species are known to feed on nectar and produce honey, Honey is collected from wild bee colonies, or from domesticated beehives. The honey is stored in honeycombs, wild bee nests are sometimes located by following a honeyguide bird
6.
Glycerol
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Glycerol /ˈɡlɪsərɒl/ is a simple polyol compound. It is a colorless, odorless, viscous liquid that is sweet-tasting, the glycerol backbone is found in all lipids known as triglycerides. It is widely used in the industry as a sweetener and humectant. Glycerol has three groups that are responsible for its solubility in water and its hygroscopic nature. Although achiral, glycerol is prochiral with respect to reactions of one of the two primary alcohols, thus, in substituted derivatives, the stereospecific numbering labels each carbon as either sn-1, sn-2, or sn-3. Glycerol is generally obtained from plant and animal sources where it occurs as triglycerides, triglycerides are esters of glycerol with long-chain carboxylic acids. Approximately 950,000 tons per year are produced in the United States and it was projected in 2006 that by the year 2020, production would be six times more than demand. Glycerol from triglycerides is produced on a scale, but the crude product is of variable quality. It can be purified, but the process is expensive, some glycerol is burned for energy, but its heat value is low. High purity glycerol is obtained by distillation, vacuum is helpful due to the high boiling point of glycerol. Although usually not cost-effective, glycerol can be produced by various routes from propylene and this epichlorohydrin is then hydrolyzed to give glycerol. Chlorine-free processes from propylene include the synthesis of glycerol from acrolein, because of the large-scale production of biodiesel from fats, where glycerol is a waste product, the market for glycerol is depressed. Thus, synthetic processes are not economical, owing to oversupply, efforts are being made to convert glycerol to synthetic precursors, such as acrolein and epichlorohydrin. In food and beverages, glycerol serves as a humectant, solvent, and sweetener and it is also used as filler in commercially prepared low-fat foods, and as a thickening agent in liqueurs. Glycerol and water are used to preserve certain types of plant leaves, as a sugar substitute, it has approximately 27 kilocalories per teaspoon and is 60% as sweet as sucrose. It does not feed the bacteria that form plaques and cause dental cavities, as a food additive, glycerol is labeled as E number E422. It is added to icing to prevent it from setting too hard, as used in foods, glycerol is categorized by the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics as a carbohydrate. The U. S. Food and Drug Administration carbohydrate designation includes all caloric macronutrients excluding protein, glycerol is used in medical, pharmaceutical and personal care preparations, mainly as a means of improving smoothness, providing lubrication, and as a humectant
