Australia
Australia the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and numerous smaller islands. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area; the neighbouring countries are Papua New Guinea and East Timor to the north. The population of 25 million is urbanised and concentrated on the eastern seaboard. Australia's capital is Canberra, its largest city is Sydney; the country's other major metropolitan areas are Melbourne, Brisbane and Adelaide. Australia was inhabited by indigenous Australians for about 60,000 years before the first British settlement in the late 18th century, it is documented. After the European exploration of the continent by Dutch explorers in 1606, who named it New Holland, Australia's eastern half was claimed by Great Britain in 1770 and settled through penal transportation to the colony of New South Wales from 26 January 1788, a date which became Australia's national day; the population grew in subsequent decades, by the 1850s most of the continent had been explored and an additional five self-governing crown colonies established.
On 1 January 1901, the six colonies federated. Australia has since maintained a stable liberal democratic political system that functions as a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy, comprising six states and ten territories. Being the oldest and driest inhabited continent, with the least fertile soils, Australia has a landmass of 7,617,930 square kilometres. A megadiverse country, its size gives it a wide variety of landscapes, with deserts in the centre, tropical rainforests in the north-east and mountain ranges in the south-east. A gold rush began in Australia in the early 1850s, its population density, 2.8 inhabitants per square kilometre, remains among the lowest in the world. Australia generates its income from various sources including mining-related exports, telecommunications and manufacturing. Indigenous Australian rock art is the oldest and richest in the world, dating as far back as 60,000 years and spread across hundreds of thousands of sites. Australia is a developed country, with the world's 14th-largest economy.
It has a high-income economy, with the world's tenth-highest per capita income. It is a regional power, has the world's 13th-highest military expenditure. Australia has the world's ninth-largest immigrant population, with immigrants accounting for 26% of the population. Having the third-highest human development index and the eighth-highest ranked democracy globally, the country ranks in quality of life, education, economic freedom, civil liberties and political rights, with all its major cities faring well in global comparative livability surveys. Australia is a member of the United Nations, G20, Commonwealth of Nations, ANZUS, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, World Trade Organization, Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, Pacific Islands Forum and the ASEAN Plus Six mechanism; the name Australia is derived from the Latin Terra Australis, a name used for a hypothetical continent in the Southern Hemisphere since ancient times. When Europeans first began visiting and mapping Australia in the 17th century, the name Terra Australis was applied to the new territories.
Until the early 19th century, Australia was best known as "New Holland", a name first applied by the Dutch explorer Abel Tasman in 1644 and subsequently anglicised. Terra Australis still saw occasional usage, such as in scientific texts; the name Australia was popularised by the explorer Matthew Flinders, who said it was "more agreeable to the ear, an assimilation to the names of the other great portions of the earth". The first time that Australia appears to have been used was in April 1817, when Governor Lachlan Macquarie acknowledged the receipt of Flinders' charts of Australia from Lord Bathurst. In December 1817, Macquarie recommended to the Colonial Office. In 1824, the Admiralty agreed that the continent should be known by that name; the first official published use of the new name came with the publication in 1830 of The Australia Directory by the Hydrographic Office. Colloquial names for Australia include "Oz" and "the Land Down Under". Other epithets include "the Great Southern Land", "the Lucky Country", "the Sunburnt Country", "the Wide Brown Land".
The latter two both derive from Dorothea Mackellar's 1908 poem "My Country". Human habitation of the Australian continent is estimated to have begun around 65,000 to 70,000 years ago, with the migration of people by land bridges and short sea-crossings from what is now Southeast Asia; these first inhabitants were the ancestors of modern Indigenous Australians. Aboriginal Australian culture is one of the oldest continual civilisations on earth. At the time of first European contact, most Indigenous Australians were hunter-gatherers with complex economies and societies. Recent archaeological finds suggest. Indigenous Australians have an oral culture with spiritual values based on reverence for the land and a belief in the Dreamtime; the Torres Strait Islanders, ethnically Melanesian, obtained their livelihood from seasonal horticulture and the resources of their reefs and seas. The northern coasts and waters of Australia were visited s
Egg as food
Some eggs are laid by female animals of many different species, including birds, amphibians and fish, have been eaten by humans for thousands of years. Bird and reptile eggs consist of a protective eggshell and vitellus, contained within various thin membranes; the most consumed eggs are chicken eggs. Other poultry eggs including those of duck and quail are eaten. Fish eggs are called caviar. Egg yolks and whole eggs store significant amounts of protein and choline, are used in cookery. Due to their protein content, the United States Department of Agriculture categorized eggs as Meats within the Food Guide Pyramid. Despite the nutritional value of eggs, there are some potential health issues arising from cholesterol content, salmonella contamination, allergy to egg proteins. Chickens and other egg-laying creatures are kept throughout the world and mass production of chicken eggs is a global industry. In 2009, an estimated 62.1 million metric tons of eggs were produced worldwide from a total laying flock of 6.4 billion hens.
There are issues of regional variation in demand and expectation, as well as current debates concerning methods of mass production. In 2012, the European Union banned battery husbandry of chickens. Bird eggs have been valuable foodstuffs since prehistory, in both hunting societies and more recent cultures where birds were domesticated; the chicken was domesticated for its eggs before 7500 BCE. Chickens were brought to Sumer and Egypt by 1500 BCE, arrived in Greece around 800 BCE, where the quail had been the primary source of eggs. In Thebes, the tomb of Haremhab, dating to 1420 BCE, shows a depiction of a man carrying bowls of ostrich eggs and other large eggs those of the pelican, as offerings. In ancient Rome, eggs were preserved using a number of methods and meals started with an egg course; the Romans crushed the shells in their plates to prevent evil spirits from hiding there. In the Middle Ages, eggs were forbidden during Lent because of their richness; the word mayonnaise was derived from moyeu, the medieval French word for the yolk, meaning center or hub.
Egg scrambled. The dried egg industry developed in the nineteenth century, before the rise of the frozen egg industry. In 1878, a company in St. Louis, Missouri started to transform egg yolk and egg white into a light-brown, meal-like substance by using a drying process; the production of dried eggs expanded during World War II, for use by the United States Armed Forces and its allies. In 1911, the egg carton was invented by Joseph Coyle in Smithers, British Columbia, to solve a dispute about broken eggs between a farmer in Bulkley Valley and the owner of the Aldermere Hotel. Early egg cartons were made of paper. Bird eggs are a common one of the most versatile ingredients used in cooking, they are important in many branches of the modern food industry. The most used bird eggs are those from the chicken and goose eggs. Smaller eggs, such as quail eggs, are used as a gourmet ingredient in Western countries. Eggs are a common everyday food in many parts of Asia, such as China and Thailand, with Asian production providing 59 percent of the world total in 2013.
The largest bird eggs, from ostriches, tend to be used only as special luxury food. Gull eggs are considered a delicacy in England, as well as in some Scandinavian countries in Norway. In some African countries, guineafowl eggs are seen in marketplaces in the spring of each year. Pheasant eggs and emu eggs are edible, but less available, sometimes they are obtainable from farmers, poulterers, or luxury grocery stores. In many countries, wild bird eggs are protected by laws which prohibit the collecting or selling of them, or permit collection only during specific periods of the year. In 2013, world production of chicken eggs was 68.3 million tonnes. The largest four producers were China at 24.8 million of this total, the United States at 5.6 million, India at 3.8 million, Japan at 2.5 million. A typical large egg factory ships a million dozen eggs per week. For the month of January 2019, the United States produced 9.41 billion eggs, with 8.2 billion for table consumption and 1.2 billion for raising chicks.
Americans are projected to each consume 279 eggs in 2019, the highest since 1973, but less than the 405 eggs eaten per person in 1945. During production, eggs are candled to check their quality; the size of its air cell is determined, the examination reveals whether the egg was fertilized and thereby contains an embryo. Depending on local regulations, eggs may be washed before being placed in egg boxes, although washing may shorten their length of freshness; the shape of an egg resembles a prolate spheroid with one end larger than the other and has cylindrical symmetry along the long axis. An egg is surrounded by a hard shell. Thin membranes exist inside the shell; the egg yolk is suspended in the egg white by two spiral bands of tissue called the chalazae. The larger end of the egg contains an air cell that forms when the contents of the egg cool down and contract after it is laid. Chicken eggs are graded according to the size of this air cell, measured during candling. A fresh egg has a small air cell and receives a grade of AA.
As the size of the air cell increases and the quality of the egg decreases, the grade moves from AA to A to B. This provides a way of t
Taco
A taco is a traditional Mexican dish consisting of a corn or wheat tortilla folded or rolled around a filling. A taco can be made with a variety of fillings, including beef, chicken, seafood and cheese, allowing great versatility and variety. Tacos are eaten without utensils garnished with salsa, chili pepper, guacamole, tomatoes and lettuce; the origins of the taco are not known, etymologies for the culinary usage of the word are theoretical. According to the Real Academia Española, publisher of Diccionario de la Lengua Española, the word taco describes a typical Mexican dish of a maize tortilla folded around food; this meaning of the Spanish word "taco" is a Mexican innovation, but in other dialects "taco" is used to mean "wedge. In this non-culinary usage, the word "taco" has cognates in other European languages, including the French word "tache" and the English word "tack."According to one etymological theory, the culinary meaning of "taco" derives from its "plug" meaning as employed among Mexican silver miners, who used explosive charges in plug form consisting of a paper wrapper and gunpowder filling.
Indigenous origins for the culinary word "taco" are proposed. One possibility is that the word derives from the Nahuatl word "tlahco", meaning "half" or "in the middle," in the sense that food would be placed in the middle of a tortilla. Furthermore, dishes analogous to the taco were known to have existed in Pre-Columbian society—for example, the Náhuatl word "tlaxcalli"; the taco predates the arrival of the Spanish in Mexico. There is anthropological evidence that the indigenous people living in the lake region of the Valley of Mexico traditionally ate tacos filled with small fish. Writing at the time of the Spanish conquistadors, Bernal Díaz del Castillo documented the first taco feast enjoyed by Europeans, a meal which Hernán Cortés arranged for his captains in Coyoacán. There are many traditional varieties of tacos: Tacos al pastor/de adobada are made of thin pork steaks seasoned with adobo seasoning skewered and overlapped on one another on a vertical rotisserie cooked and flame-broiled as it spins.
Tacos de asador may be composed of any of the following: carne asada tacos. Each type is served on two overlapped small tortillas and sometimes garnished with guacamole, salsa and cilantro. Prepared on the grill is a sandwiched taco called mulita made with meat served between two tortillas and garnished with Oaxaca style cheese. "Mulita" is used to describe these types of sandwiched tacos in the Northern States of Mexico while they are known as Gringa in the Mexican south and are prepared using wheat flour tortillas. Tacos may be served with salsa. Tacos de cabeza, in which there is a flat punctured metal plate from which steam emerges to cook the head of the cow; these include: Cabeza, a serving of the muscles of the head. Tortillas for these tacos are warmed on the same steaming plate for a different consistency; these tacos are served in pairs, include salsa and cilantro with occasional use of guacamole. Tacos de camarones originated in Baja California in Mexico. Grilled or fried shrimp are used with the same accompaniments as fish tacos: lettuce or cabbage, pico de gallo, avocado and a sour cream or citrus/mayonnaise sauce, all placed on top of a corn or flour tortilla.
Tacos de cazo for which a metal bowl filled with lard is used as a deep-fryer. Meats for these types of tacos include Tripa. "It is said that unless a taqueria offers tacos de lengua, it is not a real taqueria." Tacos de pescado originated in Baja California in Mexico, where they consist of grilled or fried fish, lettuce or cabbage, pico de gallo, a sour cream or citrus/mayonnaise sauce, all placed on top of a corn or flour tortilla. In the United States, they were first popularized by the Rubio's fast-food chain, remain most popular in California and Washington. In California, they are found at street vendors, a regional variation is to serve them with cabbage and coleslaw dressing on top. Tacos dorados called flautas, or taquitos, for which the tortillas are filled with pre-cooked shredded chicken, beef or barbacoa, rolled into an elongated cylinder and deep-fried until crisp, they are sometimes broiled. Tacos sudados are made by filling soft tortillas with a spicy meat mixture placing them in a basket covered with cloth.
The covering keeps the tacos traps steam which softens them. As an accompaniment to tacos, many taco stands will serve whole or sliced red radishes, lime slices, pickled or grilled chilis, cucumber slices, or grilled cambray onions; the hard-shell or crispy taco is a tradition. Beginning fr
Manganese
Manganese is a chemical element with symbol Mn and atomic number 25. It is not found as a free element in nature. Manganese is a metal with important industrial metal alloy uses in stainless steels. Manganese is named for pyrolusite and other black minerals from the region of Magnesia in Greece, which gave its name to magnesium and the iron ore magnetite. By the mid-18th century, Swedish-German chemist Carl Wilhelm Scheele had used pyrolusite to produce chlorine. Scheele and others were aware that pyrolusite contained a new element, but they were unable to isolate it. Johan Gottlieb Gahn was the first to isolate an impure sample of manganese metal in 1774, which he did by reducing the dioxide with carbon. Manganese phosphating is used for corrosion prevention on steel. Ionized manganese is used industrially as pigments of various colors, which depend on the oxidation state of the ions; the permanganates of alkali and alkaline earth metals are powerful oxidizers. Manganese dioxide is used as the cathode material in alkaline batteries.
In biology, manganese ions function as cofactors for a large variety of enzymes with many functions. Manganese enzymes are essential in detoxification of superoxide free radicals in organisms that must deal with elemental oxygen. Manganese functions in the oxygen-evolving complex of photosynthetic plants. While the element is a required trace mineral for all known living organisms, it acts as a neurotoxin in larger amounts. Through inhalation, it can cause manganism, a condition in mammals leading to neurological damage, sometimes irreversible. Manganese is a silvery-gray metal, it is hard and brittle, difficult to fuse, but easy to oxidize. Manganese metal and its common ions are paramagnetic. Manganese tarnishes in air and oxidizes like iron in water containing dissolved oxygen. Occurring manganese is composed of one stable isotope, 55Mn. Eighteen radioisotopes have been isolated and described, ranging in atomic weight from 46 u to 65 u; the most stable are 53Mn with a half-life of 3.7 million years, 54Mn with a half-life of 312.3 days, 52Mn with a half-life of 5.591 days.
All of the remaining radioactive isotopes have half-lives of less than three hours, the majority of less than one minute. The primary decay mode before the most abundant stable isotope, 55Mn, is electron capture and the primary mode after is beta decay. Manganese has three meta states. Manganese is part of the iron group of elements, which are thought to be synthesized in large stars shortly before the supernova explosion. 53Mn decays to 53Cr with a half-life of 3.7 million years. Because of its short half-life, 53Mn is rare, produced by cosmic rays impact on iron. Manganese isotopic contents are combined with chromium isotopic contents and have found application in isotope geology and radiometric dating. Mn–Cr isotopic ratios reinforce the evidence from 26Al and 107Pd for the early history of the solar system. Variations in 53Cr/52Cr and Mn/Cr ratios from several meteorites suggest an initial 53Mn/55Mn ratio, which indicates that Mn–Cr isotopic composition must result from in situ decay of 53Mn in differentiated planetary bodies.
Hence, 53Mn provides additional evidence for nucleosynthetic processes before coalescence of the solar system. The most common oxidation states of manganese are +2, +3, +4, +6, +7, though all oxidation states from −3 to +7 have been observed. Mn2+ competes with Mg2+ in biological systems. Manganese compounds where manganese is in oxidation state +7, which are restricted to the unstable oxide Mn2O7, compounds of the intensely purple permanganate anion MnO4−, a few oxyhalides, are powerful oxidizing agents. Compounds with oxidation states +5 and +6 are strong oxidizing agents and are vulnerable to disproportionation; the most stable oxidation state for manganese is +2, which has a pale pink color, many manganese compounds are known, such as manganese sulfate and manganese chloride. This oxidation state is seen in the mineral rhodochrosite. Manganese most exists with a high spin, S = 5/2 ground state because of the high pairing energy for manganese. However, there are a few examples of S = 1/2 manganese.
There are no spin-allowed d–d transitions in manganese, explaining why manganese compounds are pale to colorless. The +3 oxidation state is known in compounds like manganese acetate, but these are quite powerful oxidizing agents and prone to disproportionation in solution, forming manganese and manganese. Solid compounds of manganese are characterized by its strong purple-red color and a preference for distorted octahedral coordination resulting from the Jahn-Teller effect; the oxidation state +5 can be produced by dissolving manganese dioxide in molten sodium nitrite. Manganate salts can be produced by dissolving Mn compounds, such as manganese dioxide, in molten alkali while exposed to air. Permanganate compounds are purple, can give glass a violet color. Potassium permanganate, sodium permanganate, barium permanganate are all potent oxidizers. Potassium permanganate called Condy's crystals, is a used laboratory reagent because of its oxidizing properties. Solutions of potassium permanganate were among the first stains and fixatives to be used in the preparation of biological cells and tissues for electron microscopy
Spring (season)
Spring is one of the four temperate seasons, following winter and preceding summer. There are various technical definitions of spring, but local usage of the term varies according to local climate and customs; when it is spring in the Northern Hemisphere, it is autumn in the Southern Hemisphere and vice versa. At the spring equinox and nights are twelve hours long, with day length increasing and night length decreasing as the season progresses. Spring and "springtime" refer to the season, to ideas of rebirth, renewal and regrowth. Subtropical and tropical areas have climates better described in terms of other seasons, e.g. dry or wet, monsoonal or cyclonic. Cultures may have local names for seasons which have little equivalence to the terms originating in Europe. Meteorologists define four seasons in many climatic areas: spring, summer and winter; these are demarcated by the values of their average temperatures on a monthly basis, with each season lasting three months. The three warmest months are by definition summer, the three coldest months are winter and the intervening gaps are spring and autumn.
Spring, when defined in this manner, can start on different dates in different regions. Thus, in the US and UK, spring months are March and May, while in New Zealand and Australia, spring conventionally begins on September 1 and ends November 30. Swedish meteorologists define the beginning of spring as the first occasion on which the average daytime temperature exceeds zero degrees Celsius for seven consecutive days, thus the date varies with latitude and elevation. In some cultures in the Northern Hemisphere, the astronomical vernal equinox is taken to mark the first day of spring, the summer solstice is taken as the first day of summer. In Persian culture the first day of spring is the first day of the first month which begins on 20 or 21 March. In other traditions, the equinox is taken as mid-spring. In the traditional Chinese calendar, the "spring" season consists of the days between Lichun, taking Chunfen as its midpoint ending at Lixia. According to the Celtic tradition, based on daylight and the strength of the noon sun, spring begins in early February and continues until early May.
The beginning of spring is not always determined by fixed calendar dates. The phenological or ecological definition of spring relates to biological indicators, such as the blossoming of a range of plant species, the activities of animals, the special smell of soil that has reached the temperature for micro flora to flourish; these indicators, along with the beginning of spring, vary according to the local climate and according to the specific weather of a particular year. Most ecologists divide the year into six seasons. In addition to spring, ecological reckoning identifies an earlier separate prevernal season between the hibernal and vernal seasons; this is a time when only the hardiest flowers like the crocus are in bloom, sometimes while there is still some snowcover on the ground. During early spring, the axis of the Earth is increasing its tilt relative to the Sun, the length of daylight increases for the relevant hemisphere; the hemisphere begins to warm causing new plant growth to "spring forth," giving the season its name.
Any snow begins to melt, swelling streams with runoff and any frosts become less severe. In climates that have no snow, rare frosts and ground temperatures increase more rapidly. Many flowering plants bloom at this time of year, in a long succession, sometimes beginning when snow is still on the ground and continuing into early summer. In snowless areas, "spring" may begin as early as February or August, heralded by the blooming of deciduous magnolias and quince. Many temperate areas have a dry spring, wet autumn, which brings about flowering in this season, more consistent with the need for water, as well as warmth. Subarctic areas may not experience "spring" at all until May. While spring is a result of the warmth caused by the changing orientation of the Earth's axis relative to the Sun, the weather in many parts of the world is affected by other, less predictable events; the rainfall in spring follows trends more related to longer cycles—such as the solar cycle—or events created by ocean currents and ocean temperatures—for example, the El Niño effect and the Southern Oscillation Index.
Unstable spring weather may occur more when warm air begins to invade from lower latitudes, while cold air is still pushing from the Polar regions. Flooding is most common in and near mountainous areas during this time of year, because of snow-melt, accelerated by warm rains. In North America, Tornado Alley is most active at this time of year since the Rocky Mountains prevent the surging hot and cold air masses from spreading eastward, instead force them into direct conflict. Besides tornadoes, supercell thunderstorms can produce dangerously large hail and high winds, for which a severe thunderstorm warning or tornado warning is issued. More so than in winter, the jet streams play an important role in unstable and severe Northern Hemisphere weather in springtime. In recent decades, season creep has been observed, which means that many phenological signs of spring are occurring earlier in many regions by around two days per decade. Spring in the Southern Hemisphere is different in several significant ways to that of the Northern Hemisphere
Caldo de pollo
Caldo de pollo is a common Latin American soup that consists of chicken and vegetables. What makes this soup different from many other versions of chicken soup is that, alike the Brazilian canja, caldo de pollo uses whole chicken pieces instead of chopped or shredded chicken. Other differences are that the vegetables are of a heartier cut. Potato halves, not cubes, are used, whole leaves of cabbage are added. A typical recipe for caldo de pollo will include the following: first garlic boiled in water, adding chicken pieces, sliced carrots, sliced celery, potato halves, garbanzo beans, corn on the cob, diced tomato, sliced onion, minced cilantro, cabbage. While it is common to eat caldo de pollo plain, most add hot sauce; some recipes call for cubed avocado added just before eating. Caldo de pollo can be served with hot corn tortillas. In Mexico it is common to add steamed or Spanish rice in the same bowl while serving at fondas. In other Latin American countries, it is called sopa de pollo and not caldo, which means soup instead of broth.
Many Latin American countries Mexico, use this home-cooked meal during illness as a means to healing of cold viruses, after a woman gives birth, though in other cultures the recipe for this is lighter than the traditional Mexican dish. Canja de galinha List of Mexican dishes List of soups
Food drying
Food drying is a method of food preservation in which food is dried. Drying inhibits the growth of bacteria and mold through the removal of water. Dehydration has been used for this purpose since ancient times. C. by inhabitants of the modern Middle East and Asia regions. Water is traditionally removed through evaporation, although today electric food dehydrators or freeze-drying can be used to speed the drying process and ensure more consistent results. Many different foods can be prepared by dehydration. Meat has held a significant role. For centuries, much of the European diet depended on dried cod—known as salt cod, bacalhau, or stockfish, it formed the main protein source for the slaves on the West Indian plantations, was a major economic force within the triangular trade. Dried fish most cod or haddock, known as Harðfiskur, is a delicacy in Iceland, while dried reindeer meat is a traditional Sami food. Dried meats include prosciutto, bresaola and beef jerky. Dried fruits have been consumed due to their high sugar content and sweet taste, a longer shelf-life from drying.
Fruits may be used differently. The plum becomes the grape a raisin. Figs and dates may be transformed into different products that can either be eaten as they are, used in recipes, or rehydrated. Freeze-dried vegetables are found in food for backpackers and the military. Garlic and onion are dried. Edible mushrooms, as well as other fungi, are sometimes dried for preservation purposes or to be used as seasonings. Home drying of vegetables and meat can be carried out with electrical dehydrators or by sun-drying or by wind. Preservatives such as potassium metabisulfite, BHA, or BHT are not required. However, dried products without these preservatives may require refrigeration or freezing to ensure safe storage for a long time. Industrial food dehydration is accomplished by freeze-drying. In this case food is flash frozen and put into a reduced-pressure system which causes the water to sublimate directly from the solid to the gaseous phase. Although freeze-drying is more expensive than traditional dehydration techniques, it mitigates the change in flavor and nutritional value.
In addition, another used industrial method of drying of food is convective hot air drying. Industrial hot air dryers are simple and easy to design and maintain. More so, it is affordable and has been reported to retain most of the nutritional properties of food if dried using appropriate drying conditions. There are many different methods for drying, each with their own advantages for particular applications; these include: National Center for Home Food Preservation, drying section
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