My Science School

•  Film protection for seeds

If you've just sown flower seeds in a seedbed and are pleased with the spacing and soil coverage, you can go one extra step towards warming the soil and speeding germination, and keeping the earth moist and thwarting birds foraging for seeds. All it takes is spreading a layer of clear plastic wrap over the seeded area. Anchor the plastic with rocks and remove it as soon as the seeds have sprouted.

•  A salt that flowers crave

Epsom salts consist of magnesium sulphate, which, as a supplement to your plants' regular feedings, will deepen the colour of blooms and help to fight disease. Every three or four weeks, scratch 1 teaspoon Epsom salts into the soil around an annual or perennial's stem and water well. Alternately, dissolve 1 tablespoon Epsom salts in 3.5 litres water. Every two weeks or so, pour some of the solution into a spray bottle and spray the leaves of your flowers.

•  Prop up tall perennials

Peonies, delphiniums and gladiolus are among a number of tall perennials that generally need support. A wooden stake is the usual answer, but a less obtrusive option is a tall, old lampshade frame. Place the metal frame, narrow side down, amid seedlings when they're about 15cm tall, working the frame into the soil to a depth of about a centimetre. As the seedlings grow, tie them loosely to the top of the frame with twist ties. The leaves will obscure the frame as the blooms above stand tall.

•  Bromeliads like fruit

To encourage a potted bromeliad's rosette of leaves to sprout its pretty flower, place the plant in a plastic dry-cleaning bag with a ripening banana or three or four ripe apples. The ethylene emitted from the fruit will stimulate flower production.

• Splints for bent stems

If any of your flower stems are bent, pick one of these common items to use as a splint: for thin stems, a toothpick or cotton bud; for thicker stems, a drinking straw, pencil, ballpoint pen or paddle-pop stick. Fix the splints to stems with clear tape, but not too tightly.

•  Ties for stakes

‘Ropes’ made from old pantihose have long been used to tie snapdragons, hollyhocks, tomatoes and other tall flowers and climbing vegetables to stakes (they're soft and pliable), but pantihose aren't the only household item that will serve the purpose. Try these ties:

1. Gift-wrapping ribbon left over from birthday parties


2.  Broken cassette tapes


3.  Plastic garbage bag ties


4.  Dental floss (the thicker kind)


5.  Velcro strips


6.  Fabric strips cut from old sheets


7.  Strips of hessian or sacking material

•  Make a flower dome

 Get creative and use an old umbrella — stripped of both its handle and fabric — as a frame for a flowering climber or vine. In the spot of your choice, drive a 1.5-m metal pipe wide enough to accommodate the handle into the ground about 30cm deep, then slide the umbrella stern inside. Plant seedlings of morning glory or any other thin-stemmed flowering vine next to the pipe. Over the next few weeks a unique garden focal point will take shape.

•  Make hand cleaning easier

 If your garden gloves have gone missing but you need to work in the soil of your flowerbeds, just scrape your fingernails over a bar of soap before you start doing the messy work. The dirt will come out from under your nails more easily when you scrub your hands.

•  Bag bulbs to prevent rot

Brown paper bags filled with sawdust or coconut fibre peat are the easy answer to the winter storage of tender crocus, tulip, daffodil, iris and other bulbs and rhizomes. Put a 5-cm layer of sawdust or peat in the bottom of the bag and then arrange bulbs of the same type on top, making sure that they don't touch. Continue layering the bulbs and organic material until the bag is about three-quarters full. Clip the bag closed with clothes pegs or bulldog clips and use a marker to label each bag with the name of the bulbs contained inside.

•  Plastic bulb protectors

To keep underground pests from burrowing and nibbling on newly transplanted bulbs, seal the bulbs off in wide-topped plastic containers. Before planting, punch drainage holes into the bottom and sides of a large plastic bottle or carton, bury it in the soil up to the open top and fill it with soil and humus. Plant two or three small bulbs in the container or one or two larger bulbs. This won't stop rats or mice from attacking your bulbs, but it will protect them against burrowing pests.

Old plastic storage boxes are more space-efficient — and you may find other kinds of potential bulb protectors if you go rummaging through your garage or shed.

•  Flavour food with scented geraniums

Scented geraniums have edible leaves that release a fragrance when rubbed. Among the varieties to grow in pots (or, in warmer climate areas, flowerbeds) are those with the aroma of rose, lemon, apple, apricot, lime, coconut, cinnamon, ginger, mint or nutmeg. Foods that benefit from the addition of finely chopped scented geranium leaves include fruit compotes, biscuits, cakes and poached pears.

•  Newspaper protection for young trees

If you have planted out tree saplings that look a bit spindly, wrap the trunks in newspaper to protect them from the elements. Secure this newspaper sleeve with garden twine. Or make a foil sleeve, to prevent rabbit damage. Remove the newspaper or foil within a month to prevent insects from collecting inside the sleeve.

•  Lichens: love them or hate them?

Lichens are the ruffled, fungus-like organisms that grow on stones, brick walls and tree trunks. Many gardeners love the natural look that lichens lend to trees and paths — but if you're not among them, this is a simple way to make lichens disappear: scrub them with a stiff brush dipped in a solution of 2 tablespoons household bleach and 1 litre water. Be very careful that none of the run-off comes into contact with other garden plants.

•  Warm sleeve for standard stem roses

Standard roses are ordinary rosebushes grafted onto long rootstock trunks. To protect the graft in cold winter areas, cut the sleeve off an old jumper or sweatshirt. Prune back the bush's top growth in late autumn, then slit the sleeve and wrap it around the graft scar, tying it at top and bottom. Stuff the sleeve with coconut fibre peat or clean straw for insulation, then tie a split plastic bag around the stuffed sleeve for protection against severe frost. When you remove the sleeve in spring, your rose should grow more vigorously.

•  Speed rose-blooming with foil

 In mid-spring, place sheets of aluminium foil on the ground beneath your rosebushes and anchor the foil with stones. Sunlight reflecting off the foil will speed up blooming.

•  Feed bananas to roses

Most gardeners know that banana skins make a good fertilizer for tomatoes, peppers and their solanaceous cousins, but roses love them, too. Chop banana skins (up to three) into small pieces and dig them into the soil beneath a rosebush. The banana skins provide both phosphorus and potassium — important plant nutrients that spur the growth of sturdier stems and prettier blooms.

•  A grassy boost for azaleas

After mowing the lawn, lay some of the grass clippings out to dry. Then spread a thin layer of clippings around the base of azalea plants. As the grass decays it leaches nitrogen into the soil, supplementing regular feeds. Many gardeners find this 'something extra' speeds the growth of azaleas and darkens the leaves. Be careful, though: piling the grass clippings too thickly may make them slimy and, in turn, expose the plant's stems to disease.

•  Cola and tea for gardenias and azaleas

Occasionally watering a gardenia or azalea bush with a can of cola will increase the acidity of the soil, while the sugar will feed micro-organisms and help organic matter to break down. And tea? Place tea bags around the base of a gardenia or azalea plant and then cover with mulch. Whenever you water the plants, the ascorbic acid, manganese and potassium present in the tea leaves will trickle down to the shrubs' hungry roots.

•  Cleaning sap off pruning tools

Taking a saw or shears to tree branches usually leaves sticky sap on the tool. Use a clean cloth to rub any of the following substances onto the blade(s), and say 'goodbye' to sap:

1.  Nail polish remover


2.  Baby oil


3.   Olive oil cooking spray


4.  Suntan oil


5.  Margarine

•  Lubricate pruning shears

Rubbing petroleum jelly or spraying WD-40 onto the pivot joint of a pair of shears will have you snipping away at shrubs so smoothly that you will feel like a professional pruner.

Credit: Reader's Digest

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• Make seed holes with chopsticks

Instead of buying a dibber — the wooden garden tool used to poke seed holes in the soil — use a chopstick or pencil instead. You'll get the same holes for free. Another choice is a full-sized pair of folding nail clippers, the blunt arm of which you can poke into the soil and twist. When the time comes to transplant seedlings, use the same arm of the clippers to work a seedling and its rootball from the soil.

• No dibbing (or watering) required

An alternative to dibbing holes into the soil of a seed tray is to wet the soil, lay the seeds on the surface then cover them with another thin layer of soil. Cover the tray with a tight layer of plastic wrap and your job is done. Condensation on the wrap will drip down to keep the seeds moist until germination.

•  Spice jars as seed sowers

Before sowing seeds directly into a seedbed, put them in an empty dried herb or spice jar — the kind with a perforated plastic top. Then shake the seeds out over the seedbed or along a row.

• Sowing tiny seeds

Seeds of impatiens, lobelia, carrots, lettuce and a few other flowers and vegetables are so miniscule that they are difficult to sow evenly. To remedy the problem and make seedlings easier to thin out once they sprout, combine the seeds with fine dry sand and add the mix to an empty salt shaker. This will put some space between tiny seeds.

•  Make your own plant markers

To label your seeds tray by tray so you won't risk confusing your specially chosen tomato varieties, turn empty yogurt pots, cottage-cheese tubs or other white plastic containers into plant markers. Cut strips from the plastic, trim the ends to a point and use an indelible felt-tip marker to write the plant name (variety included) on each. Stick the strips into the edge of the trays as soon as you plant seeds so you'll know which plant is which from the start.

•  Paper-cup seed starters

Small paper drinking cups make excellent seed starters. They're the right size, you can easily poke a drainage hole in the bottom and they're easily cut apart when it comes time to plant your seedlings. Note that we specify paper cups: polystyrene cups may sit in landfill until your great-great-grandchildren have come and gone.

• Dry-cleaning bag humidifier

To provide the humidity needed to root a tray of cuttings, lay a dry-cleaning bag over the cuttings, making sure that it doesn't touch the plants. (Paddle-pop sticks or pencils can serve as ‘tent poles’.) Clip the bag to the rim of the seed tray with clothes pegs or small bulldog clips.

•  Root rose cuttings under glass

An easy way to root a cutting from your favourite rosebush is to snip off a 10-15-cm piece of a stem that has flowered and plant it in good soil in a pot. Then cover it with a large glass jar to create a mini-greenhouse.

• Willow-tea rooting preparation

Soak a handful of chopstick-sized fresh willow twigs in water to make a solution of natural plant-rooting hormone tea. Cut 6-8 twigs from a willow (any species), then split them. Cut twigs into 7-cm pieces and steep them in a bucket filled with 9-12cm water for 24 hours. Use the tea either to water just-planted cuttings or as an overnight soaker for the base of cuttings.

•  A rolling seed tray

Recycle an abandoned, old toy cart into a seed tray on wheels. Poke holes in the cart bottom with a screw-hole punch and hammer, then fill the cart with coconut fibre peat pots or expandable peat pellets, labelling as you go.

•  Potatoes as transporters

When moving plant cuttings to another location, you can use a potato as a carrier. Simply slice a large potato in half crossways, poke three 2cm-deep holes in each cut side with a chopstick or pencil, then insert the cuttings, which should stay moist for about 3-4 hours.

All forms of transport are used to move goods around the world. Cargo planes are by far the quickest method, but are very expensive. Where large amounts of goods need to be trans-ported over great distances, ships are the cheapest method. Container ships carry metal containers of a standard size, which can hold almost anything. Once in port, the containers are easily transferred to trains or Lorries. For shorter sea journeys, Lorries and their cargoes are driven on to Ro-Ro (roll on, roll off) ferries in one port and driven off at another.

Powered transportation was developed less than 250 years ago, but it is hard to imagine life before ships, trains, cars and airplanes. Some major transportation milestones include:

• The first steamship built in the 1770s


• The first steam-powered train in 1798


• The modern car born in 1886


• The first powered flight in 1903


• Yet people did get around before modern transportation, albeit slower.

They simply walked or rode on camels and horses. It wasn’t convenient, fast, reliable, safe or even comfortable. In most cases, you could only go 20 miles a day and carry a limited amount on your back or on the pack animal. But it was all that was available to get from one place to the next to trade goods or find food and water.

Something amazing happened starting in the late 1700s – with the invention and adoption of modern transportation. Standards of living of people around the world radically increased because for the first time trade was easier, safer, faster, more reliable and convenient. Goods could be shipped around the world and traded for other products.

Just as ships and trains could cover long distances in days instead of the months these trips took by camel or sail, by the mid-1900s, planes could cover the same distances in just a few hours. By the 1960s, aviation was the preferred way of getting across the US and abroad to Europe. Faster and faster planes carrying more and more people – for reasonable airfares – helped us to travel, explore and invest around the globe.

With each advancement in transportation technology, the standard of living for everyone around the world has increased dramatically. Supersonic transportation will have an equally astounding impact on the world. Flight times will be reduced by 50%, bringing the world much closer together and making destinations more accessible in a shorter amount of travel time.

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The earliest human beings began to make use of tools around 35,000— 40,000 years ago. Sharpened flints were used to skin animals and fashion implements from wood and bone.

Paralleling the biological evolution of early humans was the development of cultural technologies that allowed them to become increasingly successful at acquiring food and surviving predators.  The evidence for this evolution in culture can be seen especially in three innovations:

Some chimpanzee communities are known to use stone and wood as hammers to crack nuts and as crude ineffective weapons in hunting small animals, including monkeys.  However, they rarely shape their tools in a systematic way to increase efficiency.  The most sophisticated chimpanzee tools are small, slender tree branches from which they strip off the leaves.  These twigs are then used as probes for some of their favorite foods--termites and ants.  More rarely, chimpanzees have been observed using sticks as short thrusting spears to hunt gallagos in holes and crevices of trees where they sleep during the day time.  It is likely that the australopithecines were at least this sophisticated in their simple tool use.

The first unquestionable stone tools were evidently made and used by early transitional humans and possibly Australopithecus garhi in East Africa about 2.5 million years ago.  While the earliest sites with these tools are from the Gona River Region of Ethiopia, simple tools of this kind were first discovered by Mary and Louis Leakey associated with Homo habilis at Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania.  Hence, they were named Oldowan tools after that location.  These early toolmakers were selective in choosing particular rock materials for their artifacts.  They usually chose hard water-worn creek cobbles made out of volcanic rock.

There were two main categories of tools in the Oldowan tradition.  There were stone cobbles with several flakes knocked off usually at one end by heavy glancing percussion blows from another rock used as a hammer.  This produced a jagged, chopping or cleaver-like implement that fit easily in the hand.  These core tools most likely functioned as multipurpose hammering, chopping, and digging implements.  Efficient use of this percussion flaking technique requires a strong precision grip.  Humans are the only living primates that have this anatomical trait.  Probably the most important tools in the Oldowan tradition were sharp-edged stone flakes produced in the process of making the core tools.  These simple flake tools were used without further modification as knives.  They would have been essential for butchering large animals, because human teeth and fingers are totally inadequate for cutting through thick skins and slicing off pieces of meat.  Evidence of their use in this manner can be seen in cut marks that still are visible on bones.  Some paleoanthropologists have suggested that the core tools were, in fact, only sources for the flake tools and that the cores had little other use.

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Around the middle of the 18th century, changes took place that greatly affected way that people lived and worked. The Industrial Revolution, as it is known, began in Britain and spread to Europe and then to the United States. New machines and inventions allowed goods to be produced more quickly, and huge factories were built, leading to the rapid growth of industrial towns. People began to move from the countryside to the towns in search of work, but they often ended up living in miserable conditions.

The Industrial Revolution marked a period of development in the latter half of the 18th century that transformed largely rural, agrarian societies in Europe and America into industrialized, urban ones.  Goods that had once been painstakingly crafted by hand started to be produced in mass quantities by machines in factories, thanks to the introduction of new machines and techniques in textiles, iron making and other industries.

Fueled by the game-changing use of steam power, the Industrial Revolution began in Britain and spread to the rest of the world, including the United States, by the 1830s and ‘40s. Modern historians often refer to this period as the First Industrial Revolution, to set it apart from a second period of industrialization that took place from the late 19th to early 20th centuries and saw rapid advances in the steel, electric and automobile industries.

Thanks in part to its damp climate, ideal for raising sheep, Britain had a long history of producing textiles like wool, linen and cotton. But prior to the Industrial Revolution, the British textile business was a true “cottage industry,” with the work performed in small workshops or even homes by individual spinners, weavers and dyers. Starting in the mid-18th century, innovations like the flying shuttle, the spinning jenny, the water frame and the power loom made weaving cloth and spinning yarn and thread much easier. Producing cloth became faster and required less time and far less human labor.

More efficient, mechanized production meant Britain’s new textile factories could meet the growing demand for cloth both at home and abroad, where the nation’s many overseas colonies provided a captive market for its goods. In addition to textiles, the British iron industry also adopted new innovations. 

Chief among the new techniques was the smelting of iron ore with coke (a material made by heating coal) instead of the traditional charcoal. This method was both cheaper and produced higher-quality material, enabling Britain’s iron and steel production to expand in response to demand created by the Napoleonic Wars (1803-15) and the later growth of the railroad industry. 

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Mass production is the manufacture of goods on a large scale. It aims to produce the maximum number of goods for the lowest possible cost. The use of production lines and automation allows the manufacture of near-identical, interchangeable parts. Modern techniques of mass production were pioneered by the American motor-car manufacturer Henry Ford. Production of the Ford Model T revolutionized the way that all manufacturing industries carried out their business.

Mass production refers to the production of large quantities of the same kind of product for a sustained or prolonged period of time. Generally speaking, the production quantity has to be in at least thousands (preferably millions) and is unaffected by daily fluctuations in sales. Television sets, computers, and automobiles are typical examples of products of mass production. Mass production is associated with a high demand rate for a product, and the manufacturing plant typically is dedicated to the production of a single type of product and its variations (e.g., production of two-door and four-door automobiles in the same plant). The machine tools involved are special purpose tools that produce only one type of part quickly and in large numbers and generally are arranged sequentially in a line and in the order in which manufacturing operations must take place (some variations, such as cellular layouts, also exist). The product flows through these machine tools until completed. The layout of machine tools is called a product layout.

Mass production start-up is done by operations. The outcome is a fully operating supply chain that can accept, assemble, and ship to meet customer demand (Inaba et al., 2008). Manufacturing processes are stabilized with respect to quality specifications and yield. Team members continuously adapt and maintain assembly lines to within defined manufacturing specifications. Meller and Deshazo (2001) highlight that members of the operations team continually update the value stream map, balance operations, and implement key enclosure improvement projects. The operations team reviews volume and timing changes from the most recent sales and operations plan.

Mass production, also called continuous production or flow production, involves the fabrication of a certain something in a specific way, in a specific shape, in a consistent manner. This something may be a stand-alone product—such as a Frisbee, or a rubber ducky, or a garbage can—or it may be a part—such as a screw, or a bolt, or a body panel—that is used to fabricate something else, or it may be an intermediate product that is used as a feedstock in the production of something else.

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It is rare in modern manufacturing that something will he made from start to finish by one person. Most factories use a production line to manufacture their products. Each worker has a specific task in the production process — adding a particular component or operating a certain machine, for example. As each task is completed, the product passes along the line for the next stage of production. Some production lines, particularly in the motor industry, are entirely or partly automated. Robots play a large part in the assembly of many products.

An assembly line is a manufacturing process in which interchangeable parts are added to a product in a sequential manner to create an end product. In most cases, a manufacturing assembly line is a semi-automated system through which a product moves. At each station along the line some part of the production process takes place. The workers and machinery used to produce the item are stationary along the line and the product moves through the cycle, from start to finish.

Assembly line methods were originally introduced to increase factory productivity and efficiency. Advances in assembly line methods are made regularly as new and more efficient ways of achieving the goal of increased throughput (the number of products produced in a given period of time) are found. While assembly line methods apply primarily to manufacturing processes, business experts have also been known to apply these principles to other areas of business, from product development to management.

The introduction of the assembly line to American manufacturing floors in the early part of the twentieth century fundamentally transformed the character of production facilities and businesses throughout the nation. Thanks to the assembly line, production periods shortened, equipment costs accelerated, and labor and management alike endeavored to keep up with the changes. Today, using modern assembly line methods, manufacturing has become a highly refined process in which value is added to parts along the line. Increasingly, assembly line manufacturing is characterized by "concurrent processes"—multiple parallel activities that feed into a final assembly stage. These processes require sophisticated communications systems, material flow plans, and production schedules. The fact that the assembly line system is a single, large system means that failures at one point in the "line" cause slowdowns and repercussions from that point forward. Keeping the entire system running smoothly requires a great deal of coordination between the parts of the system.

Computer power has enabled tracking systems to become more sophisticated and this, in turn, has made it possible to reduce the costs associated with holding inventories. Just-in-time (JIT) manufacturing methods have been developed to reduce the cost of carrying parts and supplies as inventory. Under a JIT system, manufacturing plants carry only one or a few days' worth of inventory in the plant, relying on suppliers to provide parts and materials on an "as needed" basis. Future developments in this area may include suppliers establishing operations within the manufacturing facility itself or increased electronic links between manufacturers and suppliers to provide for a more efficient supply of materials and parts.

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Manufacturing forms the basis of what most people think of as "industry". It means using materials to make a product. There are often many stages of manufacturing between the raw material and the finished product. Many Indus, tries involving the assembly of component parts, which will have been made by any number of separate companies.

Manufacturing is the processing of raw material or parts into finished goods through the use of tools, human labor, machinery, and chemical processing. Large-scale manufacturing allows for the mass production of goods using assembly line processes and advanced technologies as core assets. Efficient manufacturing techniques enable manufacturers to take advantage of economies of scale, producing more units at a lower cost.

Manufacturing is a value-adding process allowing businesses to sell finished products at a higher cost over the value of the raw materials used. It is often reported on by the conference board, and well examined by economists.

Humans have historically sought ways to turn raw materials, such as ore, wood, and foodstuffs into finished products, such as metal goods, furniture, and processed foods. By refining and processing this raw material into something more useful, individuals and businesses have added value. This added value increased the price of finished products, rendering manufacturing a profitable endeavor. People began to specialize in the skills required to manufacture goods, while others provided funds to businesses to purchase tools and materials.

How products are manufactured has changed over time. The amount and type of labor required in manufacturing vary according to the type of product being produced. On one end of the spectrum, humans manufacture products by hand or through the use of basic tools using more traditional processes. This type of manufacturing is associated with decorative art, textile production, leatherwork, carpentry, and some metalwork. At the other end of the spectrum, manufacturers use mechanization to produce items on a more industrial scale. This type of manufacturing does not require as much manual manipulation of materials and is often associated with mass production.

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Industry organizes the provision of things that people need to live their lives, from essential items such as food and water, to luxury goods like tolls and chocolate. Without industry, we would have to produce everything we need ourselves. Not all industries produce goods. Service industries offer a service — washing clothes, for example — in return for money.

Many people think of industry as the collective large-scale manufacturing of goods in well-organized plants with a high degree of automation and specialization. Although this is a common example of industry, it can also include other commercial activities that provide goods and services such as agriculture, transportation, hospitality, and many others.

Industry can be classified into different categories or levels for a better understanding of the different types and for making it easier to study. Although many school textbooks list only three levels, more advanced books classify industry into five levels. The terms for each level originate from Latin words referring to the numbers one to five.

Levels of Industry

Primary (first): Primary industries are those that extract or produce raw materials from which useful items can be made. Extraction of raw materials includes mining activities, forestry, and fishing. Agriculture is also considered a primary industry as it produces “raw materials” that require further processing for human use.

Secondary (second):

Secondary industries are those that change raw materials into usable products through processing and manufacturing. Bakeries that make flour into bread and factories that change metals and plastics into vehicles are examples of secondary industries. The term “value added” is sometimes applied to processed and manufactured items since the change from a raw material into a usable product has added value to the item. Tertiary (third):

Tertiary industries are those that provide essential services and support to allow other levels of industry to function. Often simply called service industries, this level includes transportation, finance, utilities, education, retail, housing, medical, and other services. Since primary and secondary levels of industry cannot function without these services, they are sometimes referred to as “spin-off” industries. Much of the city of Thompson, for example, is made up of tertiary or service industries to support the primary industry of mining.

Quaternary (fourth):

Quaternary industries are those for the creation and transfer of information, including research and training. Often called information industries, this level has seen dramatic growth as a result of advancements in technology and electronic display and transmission of information.

Quinary (fifth):

Quinary industries are those that control the industrial and government decision-making processes. This level includes industry executives and management and bureaucrats and elected officials in government. Policies and laws are made and implemented at this level.

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A society is a community of people. All societies around the world are based on families, but the way societies are organized and governed varies from country to country. Religion, politics, economics and climate all influence the way that a society develops and organizes itself.

“Individual commitment to a group effort -- that is what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilization work." So said legendary football coach Vince Lombardi, and his words can help us understand what a society truly is.

Society is made up of individuals who have agreed to work together for mutual benefit. It can be a very broad term, as we can make generalizations about what the whole of Western society believes, or it can be a very narrow definition, describing only a small group of people within a given community. But no matter the size, and no matter the link that binds a society together, be it religious, geographic, professional or economic, society is shaped by the relationships between individuals.

There has been much debate over what makes a society successful. Philosopher Thomas Hobbes believed that without society, human life would be "nasty, brutish and short." Man's natural state, he argued, would be to preserve only oneself -- a man without society would steal another family's food, seduce other men's wives and kill anyone who got in his way. Of course, the same man would be in constant danger of those things happening to him, his wife and his children. What people needed, therefore, was a society, which would provide protection by subjecting everyone to a set of rules. But the number of governments, tribes and communities today demonstrate that there's no single way to form or govern a society.

Philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau dubbed the set of rules that a society lives by "the social contract." In other words, people must play a part in agreeing to certain laws and in choosing a given leader. If people lose that right, then society won't function as well. To return to Coach Lombardi’s area of expertise, a society without an agreed-upon code of conduct would be like football without rules or a referee. People will cooperate and commit to a society only as long as they can choose the person who mediates and voice an opinion on the rules.

It’s interesting, then, to observe the effects of the Internet on society. On the Internet, there’s no referee, and the rules that govern our interpersonal contact don't seem to hold much sway. With the anonymity provided by a screen name, people feel like they can say things they wouldn’t otherwise say, things that may even be hurtful or dangerous. And because you can do everything from order a pizza online to pay your electric bill, some academics worry that the Internet will erode our real societies, as people opt out of participating in real life in favor of participating in cyberspace. On the other hand, some would argue that the Internet has only made our societies larger -- a person in Delaware, after all, can now converse easily with a person in China. It will be interesting to see how technology shapes society in the future.

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The way that families live together can vary hugely from country to country and even within the same country. The term "nuclear family" describes an arrangement where two parents bring up their children in the same home. Extended families are those where several generations live together. In some societies, men and women may live separately most of the time, each with defined social roles.

Family, a group of persons united by the ties of marriage, blood, or adoption, constituting a single household and interacting with each other in their respective social positions, usually those of spouses, parents, children, and siblings. The family group should be distinguished from a household, which may include boarders and roomers sharing a common residence. It should also be differentiated from a kindred (which also concerns blood lines), because a kindred may be divided into several households. Frequently the family is not differentiated from the marriage pair, but the essence of the family group is the parent-child relationship, which may be absent from many marriage pairs.

At its most basic, then, a family consists of an adult and his or her offspring. Most commonly, it consists of two married adults, usually a man and a woman (almost always from different lineages and not related by blood) along with their offspring, usually living in a private and separate dwelling. This type of unit, more specifically known as a nuclear family, is believed to be the oldest of the various types of families in existence. Sometimes the family includes not only the parents and their unmarried children living at home but also children that have married, their spouses, and their offspring, and possibly elderly dependents as well; such an arrangement is called an extended family.

At its best, the family performs various valuable functions for its members. Perhaps most important of all, it provides for emotional and psychological security, particularly through the warmth, love, and companionship that living together generates between spouses and in turn between them and their children. The family also provides a valuable social and political function by institutionalizing procreation and by providing guidelines for the regulation of sexual conduct. The family additionally provides such other socially beneficial functions as the rearing and socialization of children, along with such humanitarian activities as caring for its members when they are sick or disabled. On the economic side, the family provides food, shelter, clothing, and physical security for its members, some of whom may be too young or too old to provide for the basic necessities of life themselves. Finally, on the social side, the family may serve to promote order and stability within society as a whole.

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•  Lights-out curtains

An attractive small tablecloth, pillowcase or scarf can become a night-time cover for your bird's cage. Covering a cage is an effective way to help many birds relax.

•  Natural decor for your bird

Clip a small tree branch to put in your bird's cage. He'll be able to climb it over and over again, and will also peck it to sharpen his beak.

•  Clean a bird house with vinegar

A 50:50 mixture of white vinegar turns a birdcage into a beautifully clean home and does a good job of cleaning plastic bird toys. After wiping on the mixture, rinse with fresh rap water and then dry the cage with a clean cloth.

•  Paper bag fun

Open a brown paper bag and put it on a table or other surface when your bird is out of his cage. He will enjoy peeking in and out.

•  Let your bird play peck-the-spools

Make a hanging toy for your bird's cage by stringing wooden spools on a leather cord and tying it diagonally near the top of the cage. Your bird will enjoy pecking at it and making the spools sway back and forth.

•  Use your imagination

It's easy to keep a bird occupied. While pet shops sell plenty of toys for caged birds, you can easily entertain your pet with items you have around the house. Milk jugs, mop heads and feather dusters are good toys for birds that like to pluck feathers. Try some of these:

1.  Plastic bottle caps


2.  Plastic milk cartons, with the top cut off and the edges frayed with scissors


3.  Wads of newspaper


4. Shredded computer paper


5. A natural-bristle flat broom


6.  Clothes pegs (without wires or springs)


7.  Small wooden balls.

•  A fun (or frustrating?) toy

Add a new dimension to a clear plastic drink bottle by putting beads, plastic clothes pegs or other brightly coloured objects inside and recapping the bottle. Your bird will spend hours on end trying to figure out how he can get to the objects inside.