Are Green Potatoes Dangerous to Eat?

When potatoes are stored in a warm bright place, the tubers detect that they might be in a suitable growing location and prepare to sprout. Chlorophyll production increases, which slowly tints the peel, and eventually some of the flesh, green. While chlorophyll is a harmless chemical, its presence in potatoes indicates that the tubers have also increased their production of a glycoalkaloid known as solanine. Solanine protects potatoes and other plants in the family Solanaceae from herbivory and serves to preserve the sprouting spud from hungry animal mouths. Solanine is considered a neurotoxin, and ingestion by humans can cause nausea and headaches and can lead to serious neurological problems and even death if enough is consumed. A recent study suggested that a 16-oz (450-gram) fully green potato is enough to make a small adult ill. Cooking does not destroy the solanine toxin, so the green parts of potatoes should be removed entirely. Green potatoes should especially not be served to children, whose smaller bodies make them more susceptible to poisoning. To reduce the risks, potatoes should be stored in cool dark areas, and when in doubt, throw them out (or plant them in your garden!).

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What’s the Difference Between Cane Sugar and Beet Sugar?

Written by 

Melissa Petruzzello

Fact-checked by 

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

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White table sugar comes from either sugarcane or sugar beets and is usually sold without its plant source clearly identified. This is because—chemically speaking—the two products are identical. Refined table sugar is pure, crystallized sucrose, much in the same way that pure salt is simply sodium chloride. Sucrose is found naturally in honey, dates, and sugar maple sap, but it is most concentrated in sugarcane and sugar beets. The refining process renders the original plant irrelevant as the sucrose is completely extracted from the plant that produced it.

However, distinguishing between cane and beet sugar is not completely a marketing ploy and is fairly common on sugars sold in health food stores. In order to make sugarcane crystals pure white, the sugar is usually processed with bone char; beet sugar does not require this step. Although the final sugarcane product does not have bone in it, this distinction is important to many vegans and other vegetarians who seek to minimize animal suffering.

Additionally, many bakers and pastry chefs claim there is a difference between brown sugars made from sugarcane and those of sugar beets. The molasses that colors brown sugar comes from sugarcane processing and is not a high-grade product of sugar beets. Thus, brown sugar made from sugar beets has sugarcane molasses added. Although the industry maintains that they are identical products, many chefs use only brown sugar made from sugarcane, maintaining that brown beet sugar negatively affects their products. Although some assert that the difference lies in the trace minerals from the two plants, it is more likely that there is a moisture difference that may affect baked goods and other desserts.

What is the difference Between CNG and LPG |

 What is the difference Between CNG and LPG ?

CNG is an abbreviation of “Compressed Natural Gas” 

whereas LPG is an abbreviation of “Liquefied Petroleum Gas”. 

The primary difference between CNG and LPG lies in the components that make up these fuels. While CNG is primarily made up of Methane, LPG is primarily made up of propane.

 

What’s the Difference Between Rabbits and Hares?

Separating the two can be done by looking at the differences in size, life history, and preferred habitat. In general, rabbits are smaller and have shorter ears than hares. They are born without fur and with closed eyes after a gestation period of 30–31 days. Rabbits prefer to hide, rather than run, from their enemies. They prefer habitats composed of trees and shrubs, where they live in burrows dug into the soil. Hares, in contrast, are larger, and they are born fully developed with fur and open eyes after a gestation period lasting about 42 days. They are runners, preferring open-area habitats such as prairies, where they make their nests in small open depressions.

Written by 

John P. Rafferty

Fact-checked by 

 

Why Are There Only 28 Days in February?

Each month in the modern Gregorian calendar consists of at least 28 days. That number would be a nicely rounded 30 were it not for February. While every month besides the second in the calendar contains at least 30 days, February falls short with 28 (and 29 on a leap year). So why is the most widely used calendar in the world so inconsistent in the lengths of its months? And why is February stuck with the fewest number of days? Blame it on Roman superstition.

The Gregorian calendar’s oldest ancestor, the first Roman calendar, had a glaring difference in structure from its later variants: it consisted of 10 months rather than 12. In order to fully sync the calendar with the lunar year, the Roman king Numa Pompilius added January and February to the original 10 months. The previous calendar had had 6 months of 30 days and 4 months of 31, for a total of 304 days. However, Numa wanted to avoid having even numbers in his calendar, as Roman superstition at the time held that even numbers were unlucky. He subtracted a day from each of the 30-day months to make them 29. The lunar year consists of 355 days (354.367 to be exact, but calling it 354 would have made the whole year unlucky!), which meant that he now had 56 days left to work with. In the end, at least 1 month out of the 12 needed to contain an even number of days. This is because of simple mathematical fact: the sum of any even amount (12 months) of odd numbers will always equal an even number—and he wanted the total to be odd. So Numa chose February, a month that would be host to Roman rituals honoring the dead, as the unlucky month to consist of 28 days.

Despite changes in the calendar as it was altered after Numa’s additions—alterations that include the shortening of February at certain intervals, the addition of a leap month, and eventually the modern leap day—February’s 28-day length has stuck.

Why is fish eaten for Chinese New Year?

 Why is fish eaten for Chinese New Year?

In China, fish is traditionally served for Lunar New Year because the Chinese word for fish means 'being abundant', so it symbolises wellbeing and prosperity. "In northern China, carp is the most popular fish for the new year dinner., thus symbolizing wealth.

 

What Does “SPF” Mean?

The SPF on sunscreen stands for sun protection factor, a relative measurement for the amount of time the sunscreen will protect you from ultraviolet (UV) rays. UVB rays primarily affect the outer layer of the skin, the epidermis. They are responsible for sunburns and some surface-level skin cancers. The sun also emits UVA rays, which can penetrate into the lower level of the skin, called the dermis. UVA rays are typically associated with “tanning.” However, the darker color of the skin is a sign of damage to cells in the dermis. SPF numbers typically refer only to UVB rays, but some sunscreens can protect against UVA as well.

How does the SPF tell you how long you’re protected for? Well, let’s say you typically burn after being outside for 30 minutes and have an SPF 15 sunscreen you plan to use. You’d multiply 30 by the SPF, in this case 15. That means that you’re technically protected for 450 minutes, or 7.5 hours—do note that this is technically speaking. Most sunscreens will wear off long before then from exposure to the elements as well as improper application. It is recommended that you reapply every two hours. The number of UVB rays you’re protected from also increases with SPF, though marginally. SPF 15 blocks 93% of UVB rays, SPF 30 blocks 97%, and SPF 100 blocks 99%.

 

What’s the Difference Between Hispanic and Latino?

Latin America, extending from the deserts of northern Mexico to the icy wilds of Tierra del Fuego in Chile and Argentina, encompasses many diverse countries and peoples. Though most of these countries are largely Catholic and Spanish-speaking, thanks to a shared history of colonization by Spain, they have at least as many differences as they do similarities with each other. In the United States the terms "Hispanic" and "Latino" (or "Latina" for a woman; sometimes written as “Latinx” to be gender-neutral) were adopted in an attempt to loosely group immigrants and their descendants who hail from this part of the world. The terms are often used interchangeably, though the words can convey slightly different connotations. It is important to clarify that the categories refer only to a person's origin and ancestry. A Latino/a or Hispanic person can be any race or color.

In general, "Latino" is understood as shorthand for the Spanish word latinoamericano (or the Portuguese latino-americano) and refers to (almost) anyone born in or with ancestors from Latin America and living in the U.S., including Brazilians. "Latino" does not include speakers of Romance languages from Europe, such as Italians or Spaniards, and some people have (tenuously) argued that it excludes Spanish speakers from the Caribbean. Although people from French Guiana are sometimes accepted as Latino since French shares linguistic roots with Spanish and Portuguese, there is much debate about whether people from English-speaking Belize and Guyana and Dutch-speaking Suriname truly fit under the category since their cultures and histories are so distinct.

"Hispanic" is generally accepted as a narrower term that includes people only from Spanish-speaking Latin America, including those countries/territories of the Caribbean or from Spain itself. With this understanding, a Brazilian could be Latino and non-Hispanic, a Spaniard could be Hispanic and non-Latino, and a Colombian could use both terms. However, this is also an imperfect categorization, as there are many indigenous peoples from Spanish-speaking countries who do not identify with Spanish culture and do not speak the dominant language.

 

Why Do We Carve Pumpkins at Halloween?

In Ireland, people started to carve demonic faces out of turnips to frighten away Jack’s wandering soul. When Irish immigrants moved to the U.S., they began carving jack-o’-lanterns from pumpkins, as these were native to the region.

The jack-o’-lantern has a long history with Halloween, although our favorite demonic faces haven’t always been carved out of pumpkins.

Their origin comes from an Irish myth about Stingy Jack, who tricked the Devil for his own monetary gain. When Jack died, God didn’t allow him into heaven, and the Devil didn’t let him into hell, so Jack was sentenced to roam the earth for eternity.

But how did jack-o’-lanterns become associated with Halloween? Halloween is based on the Celtic festival Samhain, a celebration in ancient Britain and Ireland that marked the end of summer and the beginning of the new year on November 1. It was believed that during Samhain the souls of those who had died that year traveled to the otherworld and that other souls would return to visit their homes.

 

Why Do Bananas Turn Brown?

When a fruit comes into contact with ethylene gas, the acids in the fruit start to break down, it becomes softer, and the green chlorophyll pigments are broken up and replaced—in the case of bananas, with a yellow hue.