Starch is a complex carbohydrate. It is made of many glucose units joined by chemical bonds. This polysaccharide is produced by most green plants as an energy store. It is the most common carbohydrate in human diets. Pasta, potatoes, bread, and other starchy foods are made out of carbohydrates.
Some good food sources of starch are cereals, bread, potatoes, grains, peas, and beans. Starch is also used for thickening sauces in cooking and thickening cold foods during a preheat. Starch is a white powder that is tasteless and odourless. You might know cornstarch or cornflour which is a popular kind of starch made from corn.
Foods with a lot of starch produce more energy than other foods. However, if this energy is not used, it is turned into fat by our livers.
There are also different kinds of starch, like laundry starch, which gives clothing a smooth and crisp feel. Sweat and dirt from a person’s wrist and neck will stick to the starch on the clothes, not to the fibers of the clothes, and will wash away along with the starch. Then, after each laundry load, the starch can be used again.
Starch glues are used in wood, cotton, and bonding of paper. Animals and humans have amylase, so they can digest starch.
Starch was used in Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries to stiffen the collars and ruffs of the fine linen which surrounded the neck. Starch also requires heat to thicken. The actual temperature depends on the type of starch.
Thomas Hobbes
Thomas Hobbes (5 April 1588 – 4 December 1679) was a philosopher from England. His most famous book is "Leviathan" (1651).
Hobbes mainly wrote about government and law—he was a political philosopher. He tried to show that the best kind of government has one in which society was organised under one authority. All individuals in that society give up some rights for the sake of protection. There is no doctrine of "separation of powers" in Hobbes's discussion. According to him, the sovereign power must control civil, military, judicial, and ecclesiastical powers.
Started by looking at human nature,we will see that humans are very selfish and that we are willing to hurt each other if we think it will help us. Naturally, humans are all equal because we are all strong enough to kill each other—even a child can kill a strong man while he sleeps.Imagined what things would be like without a government.It would be terrible—a "state of war". There would not be enough stuff for everyone, and people would disagree about who got what. Some people would fight each other, and everyone else would be very worried about their own safety. No one would be able to trust anyone else or make plans for the future. Life would be "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short" (people would be alone, poor, mean, and would not live for long). Next, Hobbes argues that it would be a good idea for everyone to stop fighting and choose a Sovereign which could be one man or an assembly of men. Everyone should agree to obey the Sovereign, and give him all power of coercion or force of restraint under law. Once the Sovereign is in place, everyone has to obey him, even those who disagree with him. This is because everyone already agreed to obey him no matter what. Hobbes says it's better to be mostly safe under an all-powerful Sovereign, than to be in a state of war.
Hobbes wanted his argument to be like math, with each step leading to the next. However, many people disagreed with his argument. Some said that Hobbes was in favor of rebellion, because he said that people were naturally equal. Others said that humans are not as selfish as Hobbes thought. Today, most people do not like the idea of an all-powerful government. Nevertheless, Hobbes's argument was a very important one, and philosophers who are interested in government or political theory still study Hobbes's books very carefully.
Trevi
Trevi (Latin: Trebiae), an old town and comune of Italy, in the province of Perugia in east central Umbria, 42°53N 12°45E, at 424 meters (1391 ft) above sea-level on the lower part of Mt. Serano above the wide plain of the Clitunno river. It is 10 km (6 mi) S.S.E. of Foligno and 20 km (12 mi) N. of Spoleto. The 2003 count of people by the government said that there were 7800 people living in the "comune": about half of the people live in the town and the other people live in the country near town. The "frazioni" of Trevi (the smaller towns that belong to Trevi) are Borgo, Bovara, Cannaiola, Coste, Pigge, Manciano, Matigge, Parrano, Picciche, S. Lorenzo, S. Maria in Valle.
Most of the town is densely built with many buildings predating the 18th century. It crowns a summit and when one is in the centre the streets are mostly gently sloping. From the town one can see one of the best views in Umbria, over 50 km (30 mi) to the west and on clear days as far as Perugia to the north and even Monte Amiata in southern Tuscany. On the main train route from Rome to Ancona there is a station at the botton of Monte Serano servicing Trevi but the rapid Intercity services do not stop. The train service from Florence to Rome by way of Perugia also stops there: Local bus connections are not frequent. Trevi is a pleasant place to visit and of recent accommodation and good eating has become available; there are few restaurants, but they are good and more numerous than in other nearby small towns.
In Roman times, Pliny the Elder said Trevi was a city of the old Umbrians, and an old stone with Umbrian writing was found in the comune, at Bovara, in the 1950s. ""Treviae"" is also listed in the 5th‑century Bordeaux Itinerary. We do not know the history of Trevi in very old times, although some walls in the center part of the town on the hill are as old as the 1st century BC. Trevi started to spread out away from the hill during the time of the Empire, when Hadrian fixed the main road in the area, the Via Flaminia; this made a small town in the plain grow, at a place now called Pietrarossa. For hundreds of years people have been finding old things there: there were Roman baths that people were probably using in the time of St. Francis, who came here and told people to bathe in them.
In old times people say that Trevi ruled the valley below it, all the way to the Colli Martani, the line of mountains that run down the middle of Umbria. Trevi had a bishop until the 11th century, and was an important place belonging to the Lombards (in Italian, a "gastaldato"). At the beginning of the 13th century, Trevi made itself independent and became a free commune. It often fought on the side of Perugia to defend itself against nearby Spoleto, and fought wars with other communes in the area, winning some and losing some. It was invaded by Spoleto in the 14th century and by the Trinci, rulers of Foligno. In 1438 Trevi became part of the lands belonging to the Church as part of the "legation" of Perugia: after that Trevi's history was as part of the States of the Church, then (1860) of the united Kingdom of Italy.
Trevi was at its most prosperous in the 15th century: the town was so important for those who wanted to buy and sell that people called it "il porto secco" — the dry port. In 1470, with Foligno, Trevi became the fourth town in Italy to have a printing press, managed by the first known printing company. Many big renaissance palazzi of the town indicate the contemporaneous prosperity.
Trevi is inside two walls of the Middle Ages; at the end of the 20th century, people found that the inside walls were Roman.
Trevi has about twenty old churches, some of which are interesting:
The country area around the town has many Romanesque churches: some of those on the plain were built on the Roman Via Flaminia and indicate the road's former route. Some of the stone in these churches is old Roman and derives from buildings long gone.