1.
Greek language
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Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, native to Greece and other parts of the Eastern Mediterranean. It has the longest documented history of any living language, spanning 34 centuries of written records and its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the major part of its history, other systems, such as Linear B and the Cypriot syllabary, were used previously. The alphabet arose from the Phoenician script and was in turn the basis of the Latin, Cyrillic, Armenian, Coptic, Gothic and many other writing systems. Together with the Latin texts and traditions of the Roman world, during antiquity, Greek was a widely spoken lingua franca in the Mediterranean world and many places beyond. It would eventually become the official parlance of the Byzantine Empire, the language is spoken by at least 13.2 million people today in Greece, Cyprus, Italy, Albania, Turkey, and the Greek diaspora. Greek roots are used to coin new words for other languages, Greek. Greek has been spoken in the Balkan peninsula since around the 3rd millennium BC, the earliest written evidence is a Linear B clay tablet found in Messenia that dates to between 1450 and 1350 BC, making Greek the worlds oldest recorded living language. Among the Indo-European languages, its date of earliest written attestation is matched only by the now extinct Anatolian languages, the Greek language is conventionally divided into the following periods, Proto-Greek, the unrecorded but assumed last ancestor of all known varieties of Greek. The unity of Proto-Greek would have ended as Hellenic migrants entered the Greek peninsula sometime in the Neolithic era or the Bronze Age, Mycenaean Greek, the language of the Mycenaean civilisation. It is recorded in the Linear B script on tablets dating from the 15th century BC onwards, Ancient Greek, in its various dialects, the language of the Archaic and Classical periods of the ancient Greek civilisation. It was widely known throughout the Roman Empire, after the Roman conquest of Greece, an unofficial bilingualism of Greek and Latin was established in the city of Rome and Koine Greek became a first or second language in the Roman Empire. The origin of Christianity can also be traced through Koine Greek, Medieval Greek, also known as Byzantine Greek, the continuation of Koine Greek in Byzantine Greece, up to the demise of the Byzantine Empire in the 15th century. Much of the written Greek that was used as the language of the Byzantine Empire was an eclectic middle-ground variety based on the tradition of written Koine. Modern Greek, Stemming from Medieval Greek, Modern Greek usages can be traced in the Byzantine period and it is the language used by the modern Greeks, and, apart from Standard Modern Greek, there are several dialects of it. In the modern era, the Greek language entered a state of diglossia, the historical unity and continuing identity between the various stages of the Greek language is often emphasised. Greek speakers today still tend to regard literary works of ancient Greek as part of their own rather than a foreign language and it is also often stated that the historical changes have been relatively slight compared with some other languages. According to one estimation, Homeric Greek is probably closer to demotic than 12-century Middle English is to modern spoken English, Greek is spoken by about 13 million people, mainly in Greece, Albania and Cyprus, but also worldwide by the large Greek diaspora. Greek is the language of Greece, where it is spoken by almost the entire population
2.
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
3.
Carbohydrate
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A carbohydrate is a biological molecule consisting of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen atoms, usually with a hydrogen–oxygen atom ratio of 2,1, in other words, with the empirical formula Cmn. This formula holds true for monosaccharides, some exceptions exist, for example, deoxyribose, a sugar component of DNA, has the empirical formula C5H10O4. Carbohydrates are technically hydrates of carbon, structurally it is accurate to view them as polyhydroxy aldehydes and ketones. The term is most common in biochemistry, where it is a synonym of saccharide, a group that includes sugars, starch, the saccharides are divided into four chemical groups, monosaccharides, disaccharides, oligosaccharides, and polysaccharides. Monosaccharides and disaccharides, the smallest carbohydrates, are referred to as sugars. The word saccharide comes from the Greek word σάκχαρον, meaning sugar, while the scientific nomenclature of carbohydrates is complex, the names of the monosaccharides and disaccharides very often end in the suffix -ose. For example, grape sugar is the glucose, cane sugar is the disaccharide sucrose. Carbohydrates perform numerous roles in living organisms, polysaccharides serve for the storage of energy and as structural components. The 5-carbon monosaccharide ribose is an important component of coenzymes and the backbone of the genetic molecule known as RNA, the related deoxyribose is a component of DNA. Saccharides and their derivatives include many other important biomolecules that play key roles in the system, fertilization, preventing pathogenesis, blood clotting. In food science and in informal contexts, the term carbohydrate often means any food that is particularly rich in the complex carbohydrate starch or simple carbohydrates. Often in lists of information, such as the USDA National Nutrient Database, the term carbohydrate is used for everything other than water, protein, fat, ash. This will include chemical compounds such as acetic or lactic acid, carbohydrates are found in wide variety of foods. The important sources are cereals, potatoes, sugarcane, fruits, table sugar, bread, milk, starch and sugar are the important carbohydrates in our diet. Starch is abundant in potatoes, maize, rice and other cereals, sugar appears in our diet mainly as sucrose which is added to drinks and many prepared foods such as jam, biscuits and cakes. Glucose and fructose are found naturally in fruits and some vegetables. Glycogen is carbohydrate found in the liver and muscles, cellulose in the cell wall of all plant tissue is a carbohydrate. It is important in our diet as fibre which helps to maintain a healthy digestive system, formerly the name carbohydrate was used in chemistry for any compound with the formula Cm n
4.
Hydrolysis
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Hydrolysis usually means the cleavage of chemical bonds by the addition of water. When a carbohydrate is broken into its component sugar molecules by hydrolysis, generally, hydrolysis or saccharification is a step in the degradation of a substance. Hydrolysis can be the reverse of a reaction in which two molecules join together into a larger one and eject a water molecule. Thus hydrolysis adds water to break down, whereas condensation builds up by removing water, usually hydrolysis is a chemical process in which a molecule of water is added to a substance. Sometimes this addition causes both substance and water molecule to split into two parts, in such reactions, one fragment of the target molecule gains a hydrogen ion. A common kind of hydrolysis occurs when a salt of an acid or weak base is dissolved in water. Water spontaneously ionizes into hydroxide anions and hydronium cations, the salt also dissociates into its constituent anions and cations. For example, sodium acetate dissociates in water into sodium and acetate ions, sodium ions react very little with the hydroxide ions whereas the acetate ions combine with hydronium ions to produce acetic acid. In this case the net result is an excess of hydroxide ions. For example, dissolving sulfuric acid in water is accompanied by hydrolysis to give hydronium and bisulfate, for a more technical discussion of what occurs during such a hydrolysis, see Brønsted–Lowry acid–base theory. Acid–base-catalysed hydrolyses are very common, one example is the hydrolysis of amides or esters and their hydrolysis occurs when the nucleophile attacks the carbon of the carbonyl group of the ester or amide. In an aqueous base, hydroxyl ions are better nucleophiles than polar molecules such as water, in acids, the carbonyl group becomes protonated, and this leads to a much easier nucleophilic attack. The products for both hydrolyses are compounds with carboxylic acid groups, perhaps the oldest commercially practiced example of ester hydrolysis is saponification. It is the hydrolysis of a triglyceride with a base such as sodium hydroxide. During the process, glycerol is formed, and the fatty acids react with the base and these salts are called soaps, commonly used in households. In addition, in living systems, most biochemical reactions take place during the catalysis of enzymes, the catalytic action of enzymes allows the hydrolysis of proteins, fats, oils, and carbohydrates. As an example, one may consider proteases and they catalyse the hydrolysis of interior peptide bonds in peptide chains, as opposed to exopeptidases. However, proteases do not catalyse the hydrolysis of all kinds of proteins and their action is stereo-selective, Only proteins with a certain tertiary structure are targeted as some kind of orienting force is needed to place the amide group in the proper position for catalysis
5.
Chemical compound
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A chemical compound is an entity consisting of two or more atoms, at least two from different elements, which associate via chemical bonds. Many chemical compounds have a numerical identifier assigned by the Chemical Abstracts Service. For example, water is composed of two atoms bonded to one oxygen atom, the chemical formula is H2O. A compound can be converted to a different chemical composition by interaction with a chemical compound via a chemical reaction. In this process, bonds between atoms are broken in both of the compounds, and then bonds are reformed so that new associations are made between atoms. Schematically, this reaction could be described as AB + CD → AC + BD, where A, B, C, and D are each unique atoms, and AB, CD, AC, and BD are each unique compounds. A chemical element bonded to a chemical element is not a chemical compound since only one element. Examples are the diatomic hydrogen and the polyatomic molecule sulfur. Chemical compounds have a unique and defined chemical structure held together in a spatial arrangement by chemical bonds. Pure chemical elements are not considered chemical compounds, failing the two or more atom requirement, though they often consist of molecules composed of multiple atoms. There is varying and sometimes inconsistent nomenclature differentiating substances, which include truly non-stoichiometric examples, from chemical compounds, other compounds regarded as chemically identical may have varying amounts of heavy or light isotopes of the constituent elements, which changes the ratio of elements by mass slightly. Characteristic properties of compounds include that elements in a compound are present in a definite proportion, for example, the molecule of the compound water is composed of hydrogen and oxygen in a ratio of 2,1. In addition, compounds have a set of properties. The physical and chemical properties of compounds differ from those of their constituent elements, however, mixtures can be created by mechanical means alone, but a compound can be created only by a chemical reaction. Some mixtures are so combined that they have some properties similar to compounds. Other examples of compound-like mixtures include intermetallic compounds and solutions of metals in a liquid form of ammonia. Compounds may be described using formulas in various formats, for compounds that exist as molecules, the formula for the molecular unit is shown. For polymeric materials, such as minerals and many metal oxides, the elements in a chemical formula are normally listed in a specific order, called the Hill system
6.
Transparency and translucency
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In the field of optics, transparency is the physical property of allowing light to pass through the material without being scattered. On a macroscopic scale, the photons can be said to follow Snells Law, in other words, a translucent medium allows the transport of light while a transparent medium not only allows the transport of light but allows for image formation. The opposite property of translucency is opacity, transparent materials appear clear, with the overall appearance of one color, or any combination leading up to a brilliant spectrum of every color. When light encounters a material, it can interact with it in different ways. These interactions depend on the wavelength of the light and the nature of the material, photons interact with an object by some combination of reflection, absorption and transmission. Some materials, such as glass and clean water, transmit much of the light that falls on them and reflect little of it. Many liquids and aqueous solutions are highly transparent, absence of structural defects and molecular structure of most liquids are mostly responsible for excellent optical transmission. Materials which do not transmit light are called opaque, many such substances have a chemical composition which includes what are referred to as absorption centers. Many substances are selective in their absorption of light frequencies. They absorb certain portions of the spectrum while reflecting others. The frequencies of the spectrum which are not absorbed are either reflected or transmitted for our physical observation and this is what gives rise to color. The attenuation of light of all frequencies and wavelengths is due to the mechanisms of absorption. Transparency can provide almost perfect camouflage for animals able to achieve it and this is easier in dimly-lit or turbid seawater than in good illumination. Many marine animals such as jellyfish are highly transparent, at the atomic or molecular level, physical absorption in the infrared portion of the spectrum depends on the frequencies of atomic or molecular vibrations or chemical bonds, and on selection rules. Nitrogen and oxygen are not greenhouse gases because there is no absorption because there is no molecular dipole moment. With regard to the scattering of light, the most critical factor is the scale of any or all of these structural features relative to the wavelength of the light being scattered. Primary material considerations include, Crystalline structure, whether or not the atoms or molecules exhibit the long-range order evidenced in crystalline solids, glassy structure, scattering centers include fluctuations in density or composition. Microstructure, scattering centers include internal surfaces such as boundaries, crystallographic defects
7.
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
8.
Solubility
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Solubility is the property of a solid, liquid, or gaseous chemical substance called solute to dissolve in a solid, liquid, or gaseous solvent. The solubility of a substance depends on the physical and chemical properties of the solute and solvent as well as on temperature, pressure. The solubility of a substance is a different property from the rate of solution. Most often, the solvent is a liquid, which can be a substance or a mixture. One may also speak of solid solution, but rarely of solution in a gas, the extent of solubility ranges widely, from infinitely soluble such as ethanol in water, to poorly soluble, such as silver chloride in water. The term insoluble is often applied to poorly or very poorly soluble compounds, a common threshold to describe something as insoluble is less than 0.1 g per 100 mL of solvent. Under certain conditions, the solubility can be exceeded to give a so-called supersaturated solution. Metastability of crystals can also lead to apparent differences in the amount of a chemical that dissolves depending on its form or particle size. A supersaturated solution generally crystallises when seed crystals are introduced and rapid equilibration occurs, phenylsalicylate is one such simple observable substance when fully melted and then cooled below its fusion point. Solubility is not to be confused with the ability to dissolve a substance, for example, zinc dissolves in hydrochloric acid as a result of a chemical reaction releasing hydrogen gas in a displacement reaction. The zinc ions are soluble in the acid, the smaller a particle is, the faster it dissolves although there are many factors to add to this generalization. Crucially solubility applies to all areas of chemistry, geochemistry, inorganic, physical, organic, in all cases it will depend on the physical conditions and the enthalpy and entropy directly relating to the solvents and solutes concerned. By far the most common solvent in chemistry is water which is a solvent for most ionic compounds as well as a range of organic substances. This is a factor in acidity/alkalinity and much environmental and geochemical work. According to the IUPAC definition, solubility is the composition of a saturated solution expressed as a proportion of a designated solute in a designated solvent. Solubility may be stated in units of concentration such as molarity, molality, mole fraction, mole ratio, mass per volume. Solubility occurs under dynamic equilibrium, which means that solubility results from the simultaneous and opposing processes of dissolution, the solubility equilibrium occurs when the two processes proceed at a constant rate. The term solubility is used in some fields where the solute is altered by solvolysis
9.
Crystal
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A crystal or crystalline solid is a solid material whose constituents are arranged in a highly ordered microscopic structure, forming a crystal lattice that extends in all directions. In addition, macroscopic single crystals are usually identifiable by their geometrical shape, the scientific study of crystals and crystal formation is known as crystallography. The process of crystal formation via mechanisms of crystal growth is called crystallization or solidification, the word crystal derives from the Ancient Greek word κρύσταλλος, meaning both ice and rock crystal, from κρύος, icy cold, frost. Examples of large crystals include snowflakes, diamonds, and table salt, most inorganic solids are not crystals but polycrystals, i. e. many microscopic crystals fused together into a single solid. Examples of polycrystals include most metals, rocks, ceramics, a third category of solids is amorphous solids, where the atoms have no periodic structure whatsoever. Examples of amorphous solids include glass, wax, and many plastics, Crystals are often used in pseudoscientific practices such as crystal therapy, and, along with gemstones, are sometimes associated with spellwork in Wiccan beliefs and related religious movements. The scientific definition of a crystal is based on the arrangement of atoms inside it. A crystal is a solid where the form a periodic arrangement. For example, when liquid water starts freezing, the change begins with small ice crystals that grow until they fuse. Most macroscopic inorganic solids are polycrystalline, including almost all metals, ceramics, ice, rocks, solids that are neither crystalline nor polycrystalline, such as glass, are called amorphous solids, also called glassy, vitreous, or noncrystalline. These have no periodic order, even microscopically, there are distinct differences between crystalline solids and amorphous solids, most notably, the process of forming a glass does not release the latent heat of fusion, but forming a crystal does. A crystal structure is characterized by its cell, a small imaginary box containing one or more atoms in a specific spatial arrangement. The unit cells are stacked in three-dimensional space to form the crystal, the symmetry of a crystal is constrained by the requirement that the unit cells stack perfectly with no gaps. There are 219 possible crystal symmetries, called space groups. These are grouped into 7 crystal systems, such as cubic crystal system or hexagonal crystal system, Crystals are commonly recognized by their shape, consisting of flat faces with sharp angles. Euhedral crystals are those with obvious, well-formed flat faces, anhedral crystals do not, usually because the crystal is one grain in a polycrystalline solid. The flat faces of a crystal are oriented in a specific way relative to the underlying atomic arrangement of the crystal. This occurs because some surface orientations are more stable than others, as a crystal grows, new atoms attach easily to the rougher and less stable parts of the surface, but less easily to the flat, stable surfaces
10.
Sweetness
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Sweetness is a basic taste most commonly perceived when eating foods rich in sugars. Sweet tastes are universally regarded as an experience, except perhaps in excess. Fructose is sweeter than glucose and sucrose and this has made possible the production of sugar syrups with the sweetness and certain other properties of sucrose starting from starch. In addition to sugars like sucrose, many chemical compounds are sweet, including aldehydes, ketones. Some are sweet at very low concentrations, allowing their use as sugar substitutes. Such non-sugar sweeteners include saccharin and asapartame, other compounds, such as miraculin, may alter perception of sweetness itself. The chemosensory basis for detecting sweetness, which varies between individuals and species, has only begun to be understood since the late 20th century. One theoretical model of sweetness is the multipoint attachment theory, which involves multiple binding sites between a receptor and a sweet substance. Studies indicate that responsiveness to sugars and sweetness has very ancient evolutionary beginnings, newborn human infants also demonstrate preferences for high sugar concentrations and prefer solutions that are sweeter than lactose, the sugar found in breast milk. Sweetness appears to have the highest taste recognition threshold, being detectable at around 1 part in 200 of sucrose in solution, by comparison, bitterness appears to have the lowest detection threshold, at about 1 part in 2 million for quinine in solution. Even amongst leaf-eating primates, there is a tendency to prefer immature leaves, the sweet tooth thus has an ancient evolutionary heritage, and while food processing has changed consumption patterns, human physiology remains largely unchanged. A great diversity of compounds, such as aldehydes and ketones are sweet. Among common biological substances, all of the carbohydrates are sweet to at least some degree. Sucrose is the example of a sweet substance. Sucrose in solution has a sweetness perception rating of 1, for example, another sugar, fructose, is somewhat sweeter, being rated at 1.7 times the sweetness of sucrose. Some of the acids are mildly sweet, alanine, glycine. Some other amino acids are perceived as sweet and bitter. A number of plant species produce glycosides that are sweet at concentrations lower than sugar
