Chewing gum
Facts
Chewing gum for better thinking
Removing chewing gum from clothes and shoes
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Facts
- The ancient Greeks chewed 'mastiche', a gum made from the resin of the lentisk or mastic tree.
- The ancient Mayans chewed 'chicle' which is the sap from the sapodilla tree.
- The North American Indians chewed the sap from spruce trees and passed the habit along to the settlers.
- Early American settlers made a chewing gum from spruce sap and beeswax.
- The first commerical chewing gum was made and sold by John B. Curtis (1827-1897) in 1848. The chewing gum was called the State of Maine Pure Spruce Gum.
- On December 28 1869, William Finley Semple became the first person to patent a chewing gum.
- In 1869, Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna introduced Thomas Adams to 'chicle'.
- In 1871, Thomas Adams patented a machine for the manufacture of gum.
- Clearing sticky gum littered on the streets and in public places is a costly and time-consuming effort. Singapore is one country who has banned the use of chewing gum with the exceptions of therapeutic gum sold in pharmacies, available only to those with prescriptions.
Chewing gum for better thinking
A study conducted by researchers from the University of Northumbria in Newcastle, UK, found that gum-chewing participants could recall more words & performed better in long-term and short-term memory tests as compared to those who did not chew. The psychologists have speculated that the improved performance could be attributed to the increase in heart rate (which delivers more oxygen to the brain) & the surge in insulin to the brain whenever the chewing motion was on-going.
Another thing to note is that gum-chewers' ability to quickly decide whether complex images matched images they had previously been shown was no better than the controls'.
Source: 13 March 2002, New Scientist
Removing chewing gum from clothes and shoes
- Rub an ice cube over the gum.
- For gum stuck onto a shoe sole, get a pack of unopened tissue paper, paste the top side of the pack (where the perforated line is) onto the gum beneath the shoe, then walk a distance of about 100 meters. Gum will leave the sole and adhere onto the pack of tissue. This trick will work on most shoes including sports shoes so long as the sole is not smooth or has an even surface.
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