Dark Chocolate Essay Example for Free

Dark Chocolate Essay (NaturalNews) Ongoing research shows that eating dark chocolate exerts beneficial effects throughout the whole body. High quality chocolate delivers disease-zapping antioxidants, lowers blood pressure and protects your heart and liver, all in one fell crunch. Chemistry Central Journal brings even more good news for chocolate lovers, stating that dark chocolate contains more flavanols and polyphenols than fruit juice. Cacao seeds are a Super Fruit providing nutritive value beyond that of their macronutrient composition, said Dr Debra Miller. Chocolate and Blood Pressure The important thing is that the antioxidants in dark chocolate can significantly reduce blood pressure in patients with hypertension. According to researchers from the University of Adelaide, flavanols promote vasodilation, which may consequently lower blood pressure. There have, however, been conflicting results as to the real-life effects of eating chocolate. Weve found that consumption can significantly, albeit modestly, reduce blood pressure for people with high blood pressure but not for people with normal blood pressure. added Dr Karin Ried, who is program manager and research fellow of the PHCRED (Primary Health Care Research Evaluation Development) program at The University of Adelaide. The analysis concluded that the pressure reduction caused by chocolate consumption was comparable to the effects of 30 minutes of daily physical activity. Chocolate and Cirrhosis There are also potential benefits for liver disease patients. Spanish scientists found that eating dark chocolate lowers blood pressure in the liver and reduces damage to the blood vessels of patients with cirrhosis. A study which was presented at the International Liver Congress 2010 divided 21 cirrhotic patients with end stage liver disease into two groups. The first group received liquid meal containing dark chocolate, while the participants in the second group were getting liquid meal with white chocolate devoid of anti-oxidant properties. As a result, the patients receiving dark chocolate experienced a noticeable reduction of post-prandial increase in blood pressure in the liver. one Square Is Enough. However, it is not necessary to eat huge quantities of chocolate in order to experience all the health benefits. In fact, just one small square a day may be enough to experience the health benefits chocolate is offering. A study performed in Germany that compared 19 357 individuals found that those who ate the most amount of chocolate (an average of 7. 5 grams a day) were at a 39% lower risk of developing a heart attack than people with the lowest (1. 7 grams) chocolate intakes. To put things into perspective, the six grams of difference are the equivalent of one small square of a typical 100g chocolate bar. Our hypothesis was that because chocolate appears to have a pronounced effect on blood pressure, therefore chocolate consumption would lower the risk of strokes and heart attacks, explains Dr Brian Buijsse from the German Institute of Human Nutrition, who led the research. Small amounts of chocolate may help to prevent heart disease, but only if it replaces other energy-dense food, such as snacks, in order to keep body weight stable.

Is Death Responsible for Diversity? Essay -- Philosophy Essays

Is Death Responsible for Diversity? Some of the hardest questions we struggle to answer in life surround the phenomenon of death. What happens when we die? Is there something beyond death? Is one way to go better than another? Is it possible to escape death? Why do we die, anyway? Why couldn't we just live forever? One explanation for death may come from the story of evolution. To explore this question, let us imagine a hypothetical situation, a world in which nothing dies. (We will imagine also, for now, that organisms would continue to evolve along the same trajectory as they do at present.) Every organism that has ever existed in the past would exist now, along with every organism present and every organism that has yet to exist. Not only would the world contain these organisms, but all potential organisms. "However many ways there may be of being alive, it is certain that there are vastly more ways of being dead or rather, not alive." – Richard Dawkins (p 104, Dennett) All the representations of the ways of being 'not alive' would be there, including those that we could not possibly fathom, those that are not necessarily contingent to our present environment. What this signifies, this absence of death, is a lack of natural selection. When nothing can die, everything is selected for, nothing is selected against. No death implies; no tests, no judgments of fit or unfit, no randomness or weeding-out of the genome, no consequence to anything that is potentially detrimental to the species. This hypothetical situation is a look at the unchanging set of all possible options, every combination of DNA that could potentially give rise to life. Every possibility is valid. This version of the world could only exist if we ign... ...t and habitat. The world would be just one big niche, where anything goes, anything is possible. If we do away with natural selection, then we must consequently do away with change, with evolution, with boundaries. "Whenever a species acquires a new capacity, it acquires, so to speak, the key to a different niche or adaptive zone in nature." (p 208, Mayr) The key merited is contingent to the change only because the niche is 'locked' before the change occurs. The boundaries we see are what create the selection pressures that cause organisms to change and are often products of selection pressures themselves. There is a direct relationship between these phenomena. If we have change (evolution) and niches, then death and natural selection are mandatory. Sources Mayr, Ernst. What Evolution Is. New York; Basic Books, 2001. Dennett, Daniel. Darwin's Dangerous Idea.

Evaluate the part played in Macbeth by the supernatural Essay

By consideration to the text, evaluate the part played in ‘Macbeth’ by the supernatural, in its various manifestations Lady Macbeth, sleep-walks. How does Macbeth relate to an owl and king Duncan to a falcon? So how can an owl kill a falcon? Banquo is dead but Macbeth’s imagination is taking over to make him think that he’s a ghost sitting there. The witches’ apparitions, that they say and do are in Macbeths favour. The armed head: Macbeth, Macbeth, Macbeth Beware Macduff. The bloody child: None of woman born shall harm Macbeth. The crowned child: Macbeth shall never vanquished be until Great Birnam Wood to high Dunsinane hill shall come against him. Later on in the play the supernatural turn against him. The witches can stop people sleeping. The witches can predict the future. The supernatural for example the owls are presented as deadlines, crickets and beetles mean death or evil. At the start of the play act 1 scene 1 where the witches hover through the fog and filthy air. The witches don’t really hover it’s the words that do the moving and the other factor that makes this work is that the audience believes in witches and the supernatural. In act 5 when Malcolm comes to attack the Scottish castle, they use branches from Birnam wood, as a camouflage to disguise the numbers of the English army and that goes with the witches’ apparitions. The witches knew this would happen but they only told Macbeth only a part of it, but when he thought about it, he thought they would never happen. With this camouflage Macbeth will probably be scared. It would have been staged by Macbeth and six or seven soldiers with branches in front of him. Supernatural means something that you can’t prove, things to do with spirits. The supernatural characters are evil. They are the witches and ghosts. The witches connect Macbeth to the force of evil. Where the place? Upon the heath. There to meet with Macbeth. The witches are old women that have supernatural powers, they speak in opposites and they rhyme when they talk compared to the other characters they will be welcome and unwelcome. They cast spells on Macbeth and Banquo to stop them sleeping. Like with lady Macbeth to sleepwalking and Macbeth seeing things for example seeing the knife above his head when he is about to assassinate King Duncan. The witches connect to Macbeth through his mind as his so called ‘conscience’ but in the play anyone who works with the witches, has no conscience. Macbeth believes in them but Banquo thinks they are imperfect speakers. Banquo also says that he cannot sleep because he has nightmares. I would not sleep; merciful powers, restrain in me the cursed thoughts. When they get the three predictions Macbeth gets very good ones and Banquo’s were ok but confusing because they speak in opposites, lesser than Macbeth yet much greater. Not so happy yet much happier. Thou shalt get kings though thou shall be none. The ghosts appear after Macbeth sends out his murderers to kill Banquo and Fleance. The murderers kill Banquo with twenty gashes on his head but Fleance escapes. In the banqueting scene, Banquo is a ghost pictured with twenty gashes on his head, but he probably only had about five or six gashes and only Macbeth could see him. Were the graced person of our Banquo present, who may I rather challenge for unkindness. Than pity for mischance. But it was all his imagination, Shakespeare would have shown it by having someone backstage, saying the lines of Banquo and the audience would think they were hearing Banquo the ghost too. They appear because Macbeth’s imagination was taking over his mind, and all it seemed that all he would think about was the witches and him being king. Because once he killed Duncan he wanted to carry on killing. And he killed Banquo and tried to kill Fleance because the witches said, Banquo would have got kings but not been one himself. I think that Macbeth has a lot of interaction with the witches, as he believes that they are good, he wants to know what they talk about and that they know the future, with the predictions and the apparitions. But most of the other characters think its something ill or sick going on with the witches and that they are bad things. So they don’t want to try and connect with them because bad things may happen. Lady Macbeth doesn’t see any of the witches or ghosts but she tries to link up with the supernatural spirits, through the light and dark, so she can be powerful with Macbeth, to be the King and Queen of Scotland. She links up to them by sleep-walking in the dark and she kept seeing the blood on her hands from King Duncan’s death. She couldn’t get the blood off and she walked with a candle, rich people did this because candles were very expensive then, just in case she woke up. What need we fear? Who knows it, when none can call all our power to account? Yet who would have thought the old man to have so much blood in him? Will these hands ne’er be clean? I think Shakespeare puts the supernatural in the play to make it more realistic, in the times he was writing plays and to make them more exciting to watch and listen to. It would be very boring without the supernatural – the witches and ghosts because the play sounds better with weird things happening because the audience tries to figure out what has happened or what is about to happen and what they are trying to say. At the globe the supernatural was probably staged as something freaky happening. But the words would have described the things happening with little actions and the audience having their imaginations take over making them think about what is happening. The play without the supernatural would be something like: a soldier who likes power and has a sidekick, does very well in a battle, gets a higher ranking and lives the rest of his life this way. The witches make him think about being king so he wouldn’t have had the thought and he wouldn’t have killed King Duncan and had all those hallucinations, Banquo wouldn’t have been killed because in the three predictions they might not have said Banquo would have kings and they would have carried on being friends. It would have been a play that anyone could make up and would be quite bad. So having the supernatural improves the play and makes it very good.

The History of LCD Technology

An LCD or liquid crystal display is a type of flat panel display commonly used in digital devices, for example, digital clocks, appliance displays, and portable computers. How an LCD Works Liquid crystals are liquid chemicals whose molecules can be aligned precisely when subjected to electrical fields, much in the way metal shavings line up in the field of a magnet. When properly aligned, the liquid crystals allow light to pass through. A simple monochrome LCD display has two sheets of polarizing material with a liquid crystal solution sandwiched between them. Electricity is applied to the solution and causes the crystals to align in patterns. Each crystal, therefore, is either opaque or transparent, forming the numbers or text that we can read.   History of Liquid Crystal Displays In 1888, liquid crystals were first discovered in cholesterol extracted from carrots by Austrian botanist and chemist, Friedrich Reinitzer. In 1962, RCA researcher Richard Williams generated stripe patterns in a thin layer of liquid crystal material by the application of a voltage. This effect is based on an electrohydrodynamic instability forming what is now called â€Å"Williams domains† inside the liquid crystal. According to the IEEE, Between 1964 and 1968, at the RCA David Sarnoff Research Center in Princeton, New Jersey, a team of engineers and scientists led by George Heilmeier with Louis Zanoni and Lucian Barton, devised a method for electronic control of light reflected from liquid crystals and demonstrated the first liquid crystal display. Their work launched a global industry that now produces millions of LCDs. Heilmeiers liquid crystal displays used what he called DSM or dynamic scattering method, wherein an electrical charge is applied which rearranges the molecules so that they scatter light. The DSM design worked poorly and proved to be too power hungry and was replaced by an improved version, which used the twisted nematic field effect of liquid crystals invented by James Fergason in 1969. James Fergason Inventor James Fergason holds some of the fundamental patents in liquid crystal displays filed in the early 1970s, including key US patent number 3,731,986 for Display Devices Utilizing Liquid Crystal Light Modulation In 1972, the International Liquid Crystal Company (ILIXCO) owned by James Fergason produced the first modern LCD watch based on James Fergasons patent.