Where did sugar come from? Detailed answer

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Where did sugar come from? Detailed answer

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Where did sugar come from?

There are many different types of sugar. It can be found in both animals and plants. But when people talk about sugar, they usually mean sucrose, the sugar found in sugar cane or sugar beets. Today, approximately 62,5 percent of the world's sugar production comes from cane and 37,5 percent from sugar beets. Plants that tasted sweet grew in New Guinea thousands of years ago. Ancient people often fought for the possession of these plants.

Later, with the development of civilization, sugar cane stalks were exchanged for other goods, and their use expanded. In this way, merchants spread sugar throughout the islands of the Pacific Ocean in its southern part, and also brought it to Indonesia, Asia and the Philippines. Sugarcane has been known in India, probably since prehistoric times. We know for sure that in 400 BC. e. cane sugar was widespread in India.

The first Europeans to learn about sugar cane were the conquerors who came to India with Alexander the Great in 325 BC. e. It has been described as a herb that produces honey without the aid of bees. From India, sugar cane culture and sugar production spread to Persia between 500 and 700. When the Muslims from Persia conquered the Arabian Peninsula, Syria, Palestine, Egypt and the Mediterranean, they introduced the habit of eating sugar in these countries.

Sugar cane was first introduced to the United States in 1751. Jesuit missionaries brought sugar cane from Haiti to New Orleans, Louisiana. Since 1795, the industrial production of sugar began.

Author: Likum A.

Random interesting fact from the Great Encyclopedia:

Why do people have hair on their bodies?

Birds have feathers, mammals have hair, and humans have hair. It is believed that feathers and wool made it possible for birds and mammals to go so far in development from their common ancestors - reptiles. There are only two places on the human body where hair does not grow: on the palms of the hands and on the soles of the feet. The hair on the rest of the body is thought to be a remnant of the thick hair that our prehistoric ancestors had.

The body of a human cub in the womb, at the age of about a hundred days, is covered with thick hair. And after another hundred days, this wool, called embryonic hair, falls out. This wool is replaced by the soft down of a newborn baby. Then, during puberty (for boys - at fourteen years old, for girls at twelve), the hairline is finally formed. Hair growth in an adult is regulated by the work of the gonads.

In men, certain hormones cause hair to grow on the face and body while slowing hair growth on the head. Female hormones act in exactly the opposite way. Science still hasn't fully explained why we need hair. We can say that the hair on the eyebrows, eyelashes, ears and nose protect important organs from dust and insects. The beard of men in prehistoric times helped to distinguish a man from a woman - even at a distance - and gave him a courageous, warlike appearance.

According to Charles Darwin, the fine hairs on the body help to release perspiration. An adult male has from three hundred to five hundred thousand hairs on his body. Blondes have the thinnest hairs, and there are more of them than brunettes and, especially, redheads, who have the coarsest hairs, and they are the least.

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3D printer and ultrasound will speed up the treatment of fractures 01.05.2014

The idea of printing an analogue of gypsum using a modern 3D printer is, at its core, both simple and ingenious. A similar opinion is shared by Turkish student Deniz Karasahin, who designed the Osteoid Medical Cast.

This product is a technologically advanced plastic replacement for "gypsum". The development not only looks much more aesthetically pleasing and surpasses the usual medical plaster in functionality, but also helps to recover faster after fractures thanks to ultrasound.

In principle, a similar invention should sooner or later see the light of day, given the growing pace of mass application for all branches of 3D printing devices, and especially for medicine. Moreover, the classic gypsum, which is widely used today in hospitals, has a lot of drawbacks. It not only has a sufficiently large mass, but also, due to the difficulty in accessing air from the outside, can lead to the appearance of foreign odors and unpleasant itching. In addition to this, the usual rhythm of life of the owner of the gypsum itself also suffers, which not only has become partially incapacitated, but also experiences additional inconvenience due to the massiveness of the structure itself.

Thanks to modern advances in the field of three-dimensional printing, it has already become possible to create implants, design samples of prostheses, and now the next step is a model of a lighter and stronger analogue of the usual gypsum. Therefore, by advising to perform it using XNUMXD printing technology, the attending physician will be able to save his patient from many problems and inconveniences associated with trauma. First of all, the final product will be as ergonomic as possible and made in the form of a broken limb, whether it be an arm or a leg.

It turned out to be quite difficult to create a model of a gypsum substitute for its subsequent printing, using the usual measuring tools. To achieve maximum wearing comfort, the injured part of the body will need to be scanned with a 3D scanner. Further, special software is taken into account, in which more detailed settings for the final product are specified. As a result, the design receives ventilation holes and all the necessary additions for a speedy recovery.

The innovativeness of the idea also lies in the use of a low-intensity pulsed ultrasound stimulator, which, interacting directly with the patient's skin through the provided holes in the plastic structure, will reduce the healing time of the injury. If we operate with real numbers, then according to preliminary information, the recovery speed with a 3D-printed "gypsum" can increase by almost 80% compared to the conventional method.

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