When did supermarkets start? The first supermarket was opened in 1916. Most of us don’t think twice about pushing a cart around a supermarket and then heading to the cash register to pay. However, that is a concept that is only slightly over 100 years old. A few changes in society had to happen before […]
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Why does popcorn pop? Pressure builds up as the water in the kernel heats up until it explodes. People have been eating popcorn for thousands of years. Archaeological evidence of popcorn from Peru in 4700 BC has been found. Corn, which is more commonly known as maize, was domesticated about 10,000 years ago but modern
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How does a pressure cooker work? By using high pressure to raise the boiling point of the water. Pressure cookers were invented in 1679 by a French physicist. He was trying to find a way to cook food faster. Cast iron pressure cookers were made in Germany in 1864. Pressure cookers improved through the early
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How does a refrigerator cool food? By transferring the heat from inside the refrigerator to outside using evaporation. Fresh foods have to be kept cool to make them last longer. As soon as they are opened, or cut, bacteria start to decompose them. When foods decompose, they taste bad, but some bacteria can produce toxins
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Why does metal spark in a microwave oven? The microwave charges one side of the metal positively and one side negatively. This charge can ionize the air, making sparks. First, we need to look at what microwaves are. A microwave is a type of electromagnetic radiation. Electromagnetic radiation is energy that moves in waves and
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It is olive oil that is made cold-pressed, without heat or chemicals. Olive oil has been used for thousands of years. Olives grow naturally around the Mediterranean and they were picked and eaten by Neolithic people about 6,000 years ago. Olives appeared in Asia Minor, which is where Turkey is today. The olive tree was
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Is irradiated food safe? Irradiating food kills off all of the bacteria, gives the food a fresher taste than other preservation methods, and doesn’t make the food radioactive. Ionizing radiation was discovered in 1895. Wilhelm Röntgen discovered that rays coming off a vacuum tube could penetrate a screen and react with a barium solution. He
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Why does UHT milk last so long? UHT stands for Ultra High Treatment and it is heated at 138℃ for 2 seconds to kill all the bacteria. All milk you buy in the shop has been pasteurized. In most countries it is illegal to sell unpasteurized milk because of the dangers. Unpasteurized milk can contain
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When did people start eating cereal for breakfast? Technically in the 1850s, but it didn’t catch on until the early 1900s. The first breakfast cereal (albeit hot) was invented by Ferdinand Schumacher, a German immigrant living in America. He used a hand grinder to grind oats that he then sold for oatmeal. The oats were
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I learned this today. How does a desalination plant work? A desalination plant makes freshwater from seawater by using reverse osmosis. Humans and animals obviously cannot drink salt water. Fish have adapted to be able to do it, but we have not. There is about 35g of salt in every liter of sea water. If
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