Sweet Stevia

Sugar Leaf... Really this is wonderful gift from the nature. Stevia is an herb found in South America (specifically

Paraguay) that has been used as a natural sweetener for at least 1500 years. The Stevia rebaudiana is commonly known as sweet leaf, sugar leaf, or simply Stevia. This is widely grown for its sweet leaves. Stevia and Sunflower belong to asteraceae family. The sweet herb Stevia is becoming a major source of natural sweetener as an alternate of sugar. It is rapidly replacing the chemical sweetener like Splenda, Saccharine and Aspartame. The leaves of the stevia rebaudiana plant have zero calories, carbs and a zero glycemic index. It is also about 30 times sweeter than table sugar. Studies have shown that these leaves also contain other nutrients such as protein, fiber, carbs, iron, phosphorus, calcium, potassium, magnesium, zinc, vitamins A and C, and other oils as well. The sweet glycosides in the leaves do not break down in heat, which makes this a desirable sweetener to use in cooking/baking.

Stevia has been around for many years, and is probably one of the safest sweeteners on the market. Since it boasts a zero glycemic index, it is safe for even diabetics and hypoglycemic to ingest. People with weight problems, blood pressure or blood sugar problems can generally use this sweetener without any problem. Since our body cannot metabolize the sweet glycosides from the leaves, no calories are absorbed from the sweetener. Research shows that Stevia can help to regulate and balance blood sugar. Other studies have shown that Stevia can help to lower blood pressure, without affecting normal blood pressure. It also can prevent growth/reproduction of certain bad bacteria that can cause cavities and gum disease. People have reported significant oral health improvement when adding Stevia concentrate to their toothpaste or using it as a mouthwash when diluted with water. Other reported benefits of Stevia use are improved digestion, GI function, soothing upset stomachs and quicker recovery from illness.

Stevia is considered to be a great aid in weight loss, because it has no calories, and also can curb cravings for fatty foods and sweets. Hunger pains are reduced when 10-15 drops of Stevia concentrate are ingested about 20 minutes before eating. Evidence shows that Stevia may actually “reset” the hunger signals in our bodies by interrupting the pathway between the hypothalamus (controls body temperature, hunger, thirst, sleep, and fatigue) and the stomach. Scientists that have studied Stevia have concluded that it is safe for human consumption. It has been proven safe by the US FDA and World Health Organization. It is a safe, healthy alternative to synthetic food sweeteners.

Stevia is an herb and it's a very important one these days because the sweeteners that we have, the synthetic sweeteners, are not very healthy for us. Stevia is a plant indigenous to South America in the area of Paraguay and parts of Brazil used by the local Guarani Indians as a sweetening agent.

The availability of stevia varies from country to country. In a few countries, it has been available as a sweetener for decades or centuries; for example, stevia is widely used as a sweetener in Japan where it has been available for decades. In some countries, stevia is restricted or banned. In other countries, health concerns and political controversies have limited its availability; for example, the United States banned stevia in the early 1990s unless labeled as a supplement, but in 2008 approved rebaudioside-A extract as a food additive. Over the years, the number of countries in which stevia is available as a sweetener has been increasing.

WHO Evaluation: In 2006, the World Health Organization (WHO) performed a thorough evaluation of recent experimental studies of stevioside and steviols conducted on animals and humans, and concluded that "stevioside and rebaudioside A are not genotoxic in vitro or in vivo. The report also found no evidence of carcinogenic activity. Furthermore, the report noted that "stevioside has shown some evidence of pharmacological effects in patients with hypertension or with type-2 diabetes but concluded that further study was required to determine proper dosage. The WHO's Joint Experts Committee on Food Additives has approved, based on long-term studies, an acceptable daily intake of steviol glycoside of up to 4 milligrams per kilogram of body weight.

There are two compounds in stevia leaves 1.) Stevioside(10%-20%) and 2.) Rebaudioside-A(1-3%). The Stevioside is stable at 100 °C this is main advantage of Steviocide over other sweetener.

Growing stevia without land

Just because you live within the confines of an apartment or condominium doesn't mean you can't enjoy the benefits of stevia farming. This versatile plant can be grown either in pots on your balcony or any sunny spot, or else in a hydroponic unit. Stevia plants also do quite well in "container gardens." A 10" to 12" diameter container filled with a lightweight growing mix is an ideal size for each plant. A little mulch on the top will help retain the moisture in the shallow root zone. A properly fertilized hydroponic unit or container garden can provide you with as much stevia as an outdoor garden, if not more.

Great Alternative

The Diabetes Pandemic is around.The International Diabetes Federation's atlas shows that diabetes now affects a staggering 246 million people worldwide, with 46% of all those affected in the 35-49 age group.The global prevalence of diabetes will go up from 8.6% in 2012 to 9.8 % in 2030 and the numbers of people affected with diabetes will go up from 285 million to 435 million.India leads the global top ten countries in terms of the highest number of people with diabetes with a current figure of approximately 50 million which is expected to rise to about 87 million in 2030,India has therefore ,been labelled as the "diabetes capital of the world ".It is also startling that by 2025,every 5th person with diabetes in the world would be an Indian. So Stevia absolutely a solution to overcome the disease.

Tech-Race

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Technology defines warfare. Air warfare was not even possible before the twentieth century, save for the vulnerable and inefficient reconnaissance balloons that were pioneered in Europe and America in the nineteenth century. In the twenty-first century, air warfare ranges from strategic bombing to close air support of ground troops to dog fights for air superiority to pilotless drones that carry the eyes and ears, and sometimes the ordnance, of operators hundreds, even thousands, of miles away. The U.S. boasts a missile defense installation that can stop the unstoppable, an intercontinental ballistic missile. Space-faring nations flirt with anti-satellite weapons launched from earth and even the prospect of space-based weapons to fight one another and threaten the earth below.

Ballistic missile

A ballistic missile is a missile that follows a sub-orbital ballistic flight path with the objective of delivering one or more warheads to a predetermined target. To date, ballistic missiles have been propelled during powered flight by chemical rocket engines of various types.

V-2:The first ballistic missile was the A-4, commonly known as the V-2 rocket, developed by Nazi Germany in the 1930s and 1940s under direction of Wernher von Braun. The first successful launch of a V-2 was on October 3, 1942 and began operation on September 6, 1944 against Paris, followed by an attack on London two days later. By the end of World War II, May 1945, over 3,000 V-2s had been launched.

A total of 30 nations have deployed operational ballistic missiles. Development continues, with around 100 ballistic missile flight tests (not including those of the US) in 2007, mostly by China, Iran and the Russian Federation. In 2010 the US and Russian governments signed a treaty to reduce their inventory of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) over a seven-year period (to 2017) to 1550 units each.

A ballistic missile trajectory consists of three parts: the powered flight portion, the free-flight portion which constitutes most of the flight time, and the re-entry phase where the Ballistic missiles can be launched from fixed sites or mobile launchers, including vehicles (transporter erector launchers, TELs), aircraft, ships and submarines.  Missiles can be propelled by either liquid-fueled or solid-fueled rocket engines, solid fuel is preferred for military uses because it is less likely to explode and can be kept ready-loaded for quick launch. Such engines commonly propel tactical guided missiles—i.e., missiles intended for use within the immediate battle area—toward their targets at twice the speed of sound. Strategic missiles (weapons designed to strike targets far beyond the battle area) are either of the cruise or ballistic type. Cruise missiles are jet-propelled at subsonic speeds throughout their flights, while ballistic missiles are rocket-powered only in the initial (boost) phase of flight, after which they follow an arcing trajectory to the target. As gravity pulls the ballistic warhead back to Earth, speeds of several times the speed of sound are reached.

The guidance system is the most important and sophisticated part of the missile. In tactical missiles, electronic sensors locate the target by detecting energy emitted or reflected from it. For example, heat-seeking missiles carry infrared sensors that allow them to “home” onto the hot exhaust of jet engines. Anti radiation missiles home onto radar emissions, while one type of optically homing missile may “lock” onto an image of the target that is captured by a television camera. Upon receiving information through its sensor, the guidance system relays instructions for course correction to the control mechanism through some type of autopilot contained within the missile or through commands transmitted from the launch platform.

Ballistic missiles contain some type of inertial guidance system, which compares the missile’s actual speed and position to the positions that it must assume in order to hit the target. The guidance system then generates correcting commands to the control system. Inertial guidance has become so accurate that the United States’ MX Peacekeeper ballistic missile, with a range of more than 6,000 miles (more than 9,650 km), has a 50-percent chance of delivering its 10 nuclear warheads within 400 feet (120 m) of their target.

Missile types:

Trident II SLBM launched by ballistic missile submarine.

Ballistic missiles can vary widely in range and use, and are often divided into categories based on range. Various schemes are used by different countries to categorize the ranges of ballistic missiles:

• Tactical ballistic missile: Range between about 150 km and 300 km

• Battlefield range ballistic missile (BRBM): Range less than 100 km

• Theatre ballistic missile (TBM): Range between 300 km and 3,500 km

• Short-range ballistic missile (SRBM): Range 1,000 km or less

• Medium-range ballistic missile (MRBM): Range between 1,000 km and 3,500 km

• Intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) or long-range ballistic missile (LRBM): Range between 3,500 km and 5,500 km

• Intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM): Range greater than 5500 km

• Submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM): Launched from ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs), all current designs have intercontinental range.

Intercontinental ballistic missile: A Minuteman III ICBM test launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, United States.

ICBMs are differentiated by having greater range and speed than other ballistic missiles: intermediate-range ballistic missiles (IRBMs),medium-range ballistic missiles (MRBMs), short-range ballistic missiles (SRBMs)—these shorter range ballistic missiles are known collectively as theatre ballistic missiles. There is no single, standardized definition of what ranges would be categorized as intercontinental, intermediate, medium, or short. Additionally, ICBMs are generally considered to be nuclear only; although several conceptual designs of conventionally armed missiles have been considered, the launch of such a weapon would be such a threat that it would demand a nuclear response, eliminating any military value of such a weapon.

Modern ICBMs typically carry multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles (MIRVs), each of which carries a separate nuclear warhead, allowing a single missile to hit multiple targets. MIRV was an outgrowth of the rapidly shrinking size and weight of modern warheads and the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaties which imposed limitations on the number of launch vehicles (SALT I  and SALT II). It has also proved to be an "easy answer" to proposed deployments of ABM systems—it is far less expensive to add more warheads to an existing missile system than to build an ABM system capable of shooting down the additional warheads; hence, most ABM system proposals have been judged to be impractical. The first operational ABM systems were deployed in the U.S. during 1970s. Safeguard ABM facility was located in North Dakota and was operational from 1975–1976. The USSR deployed its Galosh ABM system around Moscow in the 1970s, which remains in service. Israel deployed a national ABM system based on the Arrow missile in 1998, but it is mainly designed to intercept shorter-ranged theater ballistic missiles, not ICBMs. The U.S. Alaska-based National missile defense system attained initial operational capability in 2004.

External and cross sectional views of a Trident II D5 nuclear missile system. It is a submarine launched missile capable of carrying multiple nuclear warheads up to 8,000 km (5,000 mi). Trident missiles are carried by fourteen active US Navy Ohio-class and four Royal Navy Vanguard-class submarines.

ICBMs can be deployed from TELs such as the Russian Topol

• one version of the RT-2UTTH Topol M which may be deployed from a self-propelled mobile launcher, capable of moving through road less terrain, and launching a missile from any point along its route.

Many authorities say that missiles also release aluminized balloons, electronic noisemakers, and other items intended to confuse interception devices and radars.

One particular weapon developed by the Soviet Union (FOBS) had a partial orbital trajectory, and unlike most ICBMs its target could not be deduced from its orbital flight path. It was decommissioned in compliance with arms control agreements, which address the maximum range of ICBMs and prohibit orbital or fractional-orbital weapons.

China. India is known to be working on a SLBM system called the K-4 although there is no hard evidence this will come into service in the near future.

In 1991, the United States and the Soviet Union agreed in the START I treaty to reduce their deployed ICBMs and attributed warheads. As of 2009, all five of the nations with permanent seats on the United Nations Security Council have operational long-range ballistic missile systems: all except China have operational submarine-launched missiles, and Russia, the United States and China also have land-based ICBMs (the US' missiles are silo-based, China and Russia have both silo and road-mobile missiles).

Israel is believed to have deployed a road mobile nuclear ICBM, the Jericho III, which entered service in 2008; an upgraded version is in development.

India successfully test fired Agni V, with a strike range of more than 5,000 km (3,100 mi), claiming entry into the ICBM club. It is speculated by some intelligence agencies that North Korea is developing an ICBM. North Korea successfully put a satellite into space on 12 December 2012 using the 32-metre-tall (105 ft) Unha-3 rocket. The United States claimed that the launch was in fact a way to test an ICBM. (See Timeline of first orbital launches by country). Most countries in the early stages of developing ICBMs have used liquid propellants, with the known exceptions being the Indian Agni-V, the planned South African RSA-4 ICBM and the now in service Israeli Jericho 3.

Importance of Honey bees

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Just how important are honeybees to the human diet? Typically, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, these under-appreciated workers pollinate 80 percent of our flowering crops which constitute 1/3 of everything we eat. Losing them could affect not only dietary staples such as apples, broccoli, strawberries, nuts, asparagus, blueberries and cucumbers, but may threaten our beef and dairy industries if alfalfa is not available for feed. One Cornell University study estimated that honeybees annually pollinate $14 billion worth of seeds and crops in the U.S. Essentially, if honeybees disappear, they could take most of our insect pollinated plants with them, potentially reducing mankind to little more than a water diet.

Bees are of inestimable value as agents of cross-pollination, and many plants are entirely dependent on particular kinds of bees for their reproduction (such as red clover, which is pollinated by the bumblebee, and many orchids). In many cases the use of insecticides for agricultural pest control has created the unwelcome side effect of killing the bees necessary for maintaining the crop. Such environmental stresses plus several species of parasitic mites devastated honeybee populations in the United States beginning in the 1980s, making it necessary for farmers to rent bees from keepers in order to get their crops pollinated and greatly affecting the pollination of plants in the wild. In recent years commercial honeybee hives have suffered from colony collapse disorder, which, for unknown reasons, left many bee boxes empty of bees after overwintering. Bee venom has also been found to have medicinal properties, used for treating arthritis, multiple sclerosis and even fibromyalgia, and more recently to treat sexual dysfunction, cancer, epilepsy and depression.

Pollination is transfer of pollen from the anther (the male part of the flower) to the stigma (the female part of the flower). Some plants can pollinate themselves: in this case, the pollen passes from the anther to the stigma inside the same flower, and this is called self-pollination. Other plants need pollen to be transferred between different flowers or different individuals of the plant. This is cross-pollination. Many plants can be pollinated both ways. Plants can be pollinated by wind or animals.

Flowers pollinated by bees most often bloom in daytime, and can be different colors (though seldom red). The scent of daytime, bee-pollinated flowers tends to be less strong than that of night-pollinated flowers, often pollinated by bats or moths.

Honeybee pollinated flowers have nectar tubes no more than two centimeters long. They have nectar guides (patterns to direct the bee towards the nectar) and often a landing place for bees. Bees are especially attracted to white, blue and yellow flowers. Plants pollinated by insects are called “entomophilous”, and insects are generally the most important pollinators. Usually a honeybee can visit between 50-1000 flowers in one trip, which takes between 30 minutes to four hours. Without pollen, the young nurse bees cannot produce bee milk or royal jelly to feed the queen and colony. If no pollen is available to the colony, egg laying by the queen will stop.

Humans' intense agricultural practices have greatly affected the pollination practices of bees within the United States. The increased use of pesticides, the reduction in the number of wild colonies and the increased value of both bees and pollinated crops have all added to the importance of protecting bees from pesticides. Furthermore, many homeowners believe dandelions and clover are weeds, that lawns should be only grass to be mowed down regularly, and that everything but the grass should be highly treated with pesticides. This makes a hostile environment for bees, butterflies and other pollinators. Many bee poisoning problems could be prevented by better communication and cooperation among the grower, pesticide applicator and the beekeeper.

Black

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