Gelato first appeared on the scene in the ancient Roman Empire when snow was brought down from mountain tops, stored underground mixed with flavorings. It didn’t become mainstream, however until just after the Renaissance when refrigeration techniques and special recipes were developed to combine the ingredients for maximum effect. As with many of the best things in life; red wine, sports cars, fine food and coffee, the birthplace of modern ice cream was Italy.

Gelato was the predecessor to ice cream. After the Italians perfected the recipe, Caterina de’ Medici shared the love with France and the rest, to be trite, is history. If Caterina were around, and not covered in worms and dirt, I would kiss her.

So, the main differences between gelato and ice cream then? Gelato has less fat, less sugar, and a more concentrated flavor. It is made in smaller batches that refrigerate and spoil more quickly.

This, keep in mind, is if ice cream is made with real cream; most of the brands in the supermarket are not made with real cream, but rather modified milk ingredients. Food technology being as it is, milk powder, often coming from New Zealand is reconstituted in food factories in the U.S. where a bunch of other non dairy ingredients like seaweed and hydrogenated vegetable oil. In Canada, many ice “cream” manufacturers use a butter-oil sugar blend. Like its name implies, it is made using a combination of fat and sugar; specifically, 51% sugar, classifying it as a confectionery (candy) product, and thus exempt from many of the import tariffs levied on milk products; making it much cheaper to manufacture; and yet, these frozen desserts are increasing in cost. Read your labels.

I digress. Traditionally made ice cream makers use cream and/or egg yolk as the stabilizer to stop it from freezing solid. Gelato makers use a more finely tuned technique of finding the perfect balance between the sugar and water content.

The truly best gelato comes from Italy! Even immigrant Italian families, using traditional Italian recipes, in Italian bowls, and Italian freezers adding bits of ground up Italians, cannot possibly compare. Must be those magic Italian dairy cows!

In summary, Alzheimer’s Disease is a specific diagnosis, named after a the guy who discovered it – Alois Alzheimer in 1906, whereas dementia describes a collection of symptoms that have a number of possible causes. Alzheimer’s Disease is confirmed by cognitive – behavioural assessments and brain scans, and is confirmed post mortem by an autopsy.

Makes one long for the beautiful, blue waters and rich history of Greece!

Not to worry, landlubbers, you can still be a salty dog on either, but here is the difference; if you are on a sea, you are partially enclosed by land on some part of your border, while if you are on an ocean, you could be a speck with 1000′s of kilometres separating you from sweet solid ground. Seas are smaller, shallower bodies of water, partially surrounded by a chunk of land; the Bering Sea is bordered by Russia and the United States. The Mediterranean Sea is bordered by Southern Europe, Asia, and Africa and considered to be the largest sea in the world. Seas can also be completely enclosed by land as is the case with the Black Sea and the Dead Sea.

What about gulfs; like the Gulf of Mexico and the Persian Gulf. What is the difference between seas, oceans and gulfs? The Newberry Library definition provides the most clarity to this question: “a body of water existing within a large embayment of a continental coastline.” A bay, therefore is like a gulf but smaller scale.

In the 15th century when disease was such a big part of daily life; this type of artwork was commonplace.

Generally, the difference between pandemic and epidemic is one of concentration and geographic reach. Epidemics occur in a specific area which can be a city, state or even an entire country as long as the incidence of the disease remains relatively constant with no exponential growth, and localized. Pandemics are more widespread, and affect a larger amount of people – an entire continent or world wide. HIV, the virus causing AIDS is considered a pandemic. As was the Bubonic plague and small pox.

Colloquially, when the word epidemic refers to a high rate of infection – higher than you would normally expect to be the case. There are frequent epidemics of Dengue fever in the tropics; a virus spread by infected mosquitoes. Seasonal flu is not considered to be an epidemic, even though it has a high rate of occurrence, because it is expected that many people will contract the flu. It can become an epidemic, however, if the number of cases is many more than is historically usual for the seasonal flu. This can become a pandemic if the cases start increasing exponentially and spreading to new populations and geographic locations unexpectedly.

The Asteroid Mathilde

Simply put, an asteroid is a body of rock or metal, of any size orbiting the sun. The largest known asteroid is Ceres, the largest member of the asteroid belt and the smallest known dwarf planet (Pluto is a dwarf planet) after when in 2006, the International Astronomical Union, formalized their definition of a planet. This then, begs the question, “what is the difference between a planet, a planetoid and an asteroid? If you are a chunk of rock applying for planet status; you need to have sufficient mass to orbit the sun in a nearly circular fashion, and have cleared your orbit of any other celestial bodies – get beefy and take out the trash as it were. Dwarf planet, planetoid, asteroid or minor planet were terms that were used interchangeably until 2006 when the IAU again stepped in and created guidelines for a specific classification system: if you didn’t meet the onerous requirements to officially become a planet, you could be labeled a dwarf planet as your consolation prize – you need only to have an ellipsoid orbit around the sun. Thus, Ceres is a dwarf planet, but still classified by most in the know to be an asteroid.

A meteor is the streak of light that an asteroid, or any other space debris creates as it collides with our atmosphere; an object in in transition. You can’t pick up a meteor – it is like a rainbow, an effect created by a phenomenon. If you are lucky enough to pick up a space rock that your species has not been rendered extinct by, you have in your hands a meteorite. To summarize, an asteroid is still outside Earth’s orbit; it becomes a meteor as it collides and passes through the Earth’s orbit and a meteorite is the actual matter left at the end.

Free range chickens

Finding myself standing in front of a large, brightly lit cooler with dozens (pun intended) of packages of eggs to choose from, I am confounded by the difference between free range and free run eggs. In my lazy attempt to be a good consumer, I try to go for the one that subjectively sounds the best, and promise to go home and do my homework. I am sharing my results with you.

Free Range eggs are what we imagine in our minds; chickens, free to roam the great outdoors, spread their wings, eat grass and lay their eggs where they darn well feel like it. Free Run eggs are a modified version of this. They are raised in large barns where they have the freedom to roam about, are given access to the outside for an allotted period every day, and provided with nesting boxes in which to lay their treasure. By this definition, it seems, most hobby farmers with a few laying chickens produce Free Run eggs. Understandably, Free Range eggs are much more expensive to produce because spoilage is higher and more effort is needed to collect the eggs which are likely less uniform in size. Free Run eggs are slightly cheaper as the chickens are more tightly controlled.  Chickens in battery farms are tightly packed in with very little room to move; their eggs, once laid, are funneled down a conveyor belt to be processed in a big factory. This is the cheapest method; less manual labor, more automation, higher yields, more uniformity.

Consumers can become misled easily, into thinking that buying free run or free range eggs are healthier. The “free” part simply refers to the quality of the chicken’s life; while ethically important, doesn’t address the composition of the eggs, or the presence or absence of antibiotics, which is a huge issue. Antibiotics are a necessity on battery farms where disease can wipe out hundreds of chickens in one fell swoop. All chickens are routinely given antibiotics whether they need it or not leading to antibiotic resistant strains of disease that have huge implications for humans who are unknowingly ingesting antibiotics with their scrambled eggs. To avoid antibiotics, look on the label of the egg carton and it will say something like, “chickens were raised without antibiotics”. Another big issue in battery farms; and likely in some free run/free range farms is the growth hormones fed to the chickens. Typically, an unadulterated chicken will mature into egg laying around 10 to 12 months. Battery farmed chickens are finished their egg laying life by that time! Battery chickens only live around 2 years because their bodies are totally used up. Organs are forced into service before they are fully mature and their little bodies burn out fast. When a chicken is no longer able to lay eggs, it is sent to the poultry processing farm, then onto the supermarket for us to eat. To avoid this, look for labels that say grown without hormones or antibiotics. Just because your package says free range or free run, doesn’t automatically mean without growth hormones or antibiotics.

What about Omega 3 fatty acid? Eggs that contain high amounts of Omega 3 are laid by chickens who are fed 15-20% ground flax in their diet. This means that an Omega 3 chicken produces eggs with 10 times the amount of Omega 3 than their non-flax brethren. Omega 3 is a polyunsaturated fat is important for the healthy development of your brain, eyes and nerves, and many of us eating a western diet low in fish and other rich sources of this nutrient could use the little extra help that Omega 3 eggs can offer us.

In conclusion, free range and free run refer only to the conditions in which the chickens are raised and not to their nutritional content. If you would like eggs free of growth hormones and antibiotics, look for eggs that say this on the packaging. Also, be a little bit critical when you see “organic”. Many people take this to mean “no growth hormones or antibiotics”, but unless the package specifically states this, the term organic may simply mean that the chickens were given organic food to eat.

What’s left you might wonder. Blood serum is about 90% water with dissolved proteins, minerals, hormones and carbon dioxide and is an important source of electrolytes. Blood from a single donation is separated into its component parts: proteins (albumin and others), red blood cells (carry oxygen), white blood cells (fight disease) and clotting factors, enabling a hospital to custom treat people for different disorders. For example,  blood plasma (with the clotting factors) is given to counteract the negative effects of a coumadin overdose, liver failure, or to treat disorders in which blood clotting is a problem.

ROM, or read only memory. In its pure form, ROM is the data that is permanently written to a chip, that there is no way of overwriting. An example of ROM is the program that you computer uses to reboot. It is essential to the core functioning of the computer. You might be familiar with Electrically Erasable Programmable Read Only Memory in the form of a flash drive.

There is an insinuated higher value placed on the marketing approach as it is more customer focussed, but selling plays an important role in the overall marketing strategy. For example, if you are launching a brand new product such as the plasma car that kids ride, consumers may be interested in buying based on advertisements that they see, but a skilled salesperson is able to present features, advantages and benefits of the product. Very few of these ride on toys would have been sold without the knowledgeable sales people available to answer customer questions and solve problems.

So, in summary, sales pushes an already existing product and marketing recognizes a need to be filled and creates a product to serve that need. The picture featured here shows an Xbox360. Video game retailers need to be very knowledgeable sellers of their products. I love my Xbox360.

Then refers to time in a sequence of events or in reference to the past. I was much thinner back then. First I went to the supermarket, then I saw a movie.

There is nothing more to it.