Fresh Cut Flowers Adhesive Tape Tofu Lottery Tickets
Today on "how it's made"... Fresh cut flowers... Adhesive tape... Tofu... Tofu... And lottery tickets. And lottery tickets. To wish condolences, congratulations, or for romance, there's no shortage of occasions for sending flowers. Whether made up in a splendid arrangement or simply placed in a vase, fresh cut flowers rarely go unappreciated. Roses are a perennial favorite. Florists buy them from commercial greenhouses. Those greenhouses have sophisticated sprinkler systems positioned to irrigate the soil rather than the plants because watering directly on the rose bushes would grow harmful fungus. The hotter the weather, the more watering is required-- up to seven times daily for about five minutes each time. The greenhouse climate is computer-controlled. If it gets too humid, the computer automatically triggers the roof to open, bringing down the temperature. The ideal greenhouse temperature for most flowers is about 70 degrees fahrenheit during the daytime and 60 degrees at night. With every watering, the roses get a low-level dose of fertilizer, the botanical version of taking a daily vitamin supplement. It's a mix of nitrogen, phosphate, and potassium. The proportions are determined by ongoing soil analysis. If the pest specialist detects a bug problem, he applies an insecticide treatment to target the particular pest, but first, they close the roof so as not to pollute the outside environment. Workers handling the chemicals wear masks and protective wear masks and protective clothing. Clothing. The roses grow through the openings of horizontal trellises positioned one above the other. This ensures the stems grow tall and straight. Crooked roses, after all, are worthless. Cutting the roses is tricky and prickly. Workers have to wear thick gloves to protect them against the thorns. They cut the stem at a 30-to-45 degree angle just above the second set of 5 leaves. The cut must be precisely at that spot for a second rose to bloom about 40 to 55 days later, depending on the season. Growth is slower in winter because there's less sun. The growth period also varies somewhat according to the variety of rose. The fresh cut roses go into a bucket of lukewarm water with a few drops of bleach to kill off any harmful bacteria. Workers then check each and every rose to make sure the blooms and foliage are free of blooms and foliage are free of defects. Defects. Then they classify the roses by length. The longer the stem, the more the longer the stem, the more the rose is worth. The rose is worth. They make a bundle of each length... Then trim the bottom of the stems to equalize the height. They wrap the roses in newsprint so they won't dry out during shipping. The transport trucks are refrigerated in summer and heated in winter to keep the roses at a safe temperature, about 40 degrees fahrenheit. To make a bouquet of dried roses they select open blooms for a nicer look, then hang them upside down in a room cooled by fans. They leave lots of space between bouquets so the air will better circulate. The roses take a week to dry out. Fresh cut flowers are striking, whether part of an arrangement or in a vase. They can last in water for about a week, provided you trim half an inch of the stems to open up the water channels. Fill the vase with lukewarm water, never cold water. Pour in a bit of bleach to ward off stem-clogging bacteria. Change the water every three days, and be sure to keep the flowers away from the heat of a flowers away from the heat of a sunny window. Sunny window. Adhesive tape was invented in 1925 as a painter's masking tape for auto-body shops. That led to transparent tape, designed to seal the cellophane wrap used by the food industry. Then tape was introduced as a household item, and the idea just stuck. These rolls of plastic film called polypropylene are on their way to becoming shipping tape. The rolls go on a machine called the unwinder. Workers then position a strip of adhesive splicing tape along the end of each roll. This will enable them to connect one roll after another, creating an uninterrupted feed to the production line. Now watch closely. Once a roll unwinds completely, its end sticks onto the splicing tape at the beginning of the next roll. Once that roll's unwound, its end will stick to the beginning of the next, and so on. An automatic tension adjuster ensures that the machine pulls the film evenly to prevent ripping. The unwinder also applies a solvent to the film's surface. This prevents the film from sticking while unrolling. To transform this film into tape, they coat one side with a hot adhesive known as hotmelt, made from several ingredients. Synthetic rubber gives it flexibility. A u.v. protector keeps it from drying and discoloring, while an antioxidant prevents aging. Synthetic resin makes it sticky, while pigmentation oil provides a choice of color-- in this case, tan. They load the hotmelt into a preheated holding tank, which keeps the melt at a piping 390 degrees fahrenheit to prevent it from hardening. The tank pumps the adhesive to a machine called the gluer. They wipe away the excess, then roll the film. And there goes the adhesive. A cooling roller-- that black one on top-- immediately hardens it. A computerized sensor ensures there's an even coat of adhesive. If not, it automatically signals to the pump to adjust the output. Now a machine called the rewinder rolls the tape onto spools. Remember the unwinder that spliced the rolls together? Well, the rewinder unsplices them. When a spool fills, a knife separates the tape at the splice point so that winding can begin point so that winding can begin on the next spool. On the next spool. The tape on just one of these spools would run the length of 85 football fields. The spools feed a row of sharp razor blades called the slitters which divide the 5-foot-wide tape into several strips. Shipping tape is almost 2 inches wide, so they get 31 strips per spool. Each strip winds onto a cardboard core, and its end is cardboard core, and its end is sealed with a tab. Sealed with a tab. The length of tape per roll varies according to the customer's specifications. As the machine ejects the finished tape rolls, in comes the next batch of cardboard cores. Then it's off to the packaging department. Nothing's shipped out, however, before a quality-control check. They test a sample roll from each spool. In one test, they unroll the tape sticky side up, then release a tiny, stainless-steel ball down an incline, measuring how far the ball rolls before it sticks and comes to a stop. To pass the test, the ball has to adhere within a certain distance. The stopping distance varies depending on the type of depending on the type of adhesive tape. Adhesive tape. Some people just can't get past that rubbery texture, but tofu enthusiasts say it's all in how you prepare it. Tofu is a great source of protein, low in saturated fat, and cholesterol-free. And it's versatile, absorbing whatever flavors surround it. Tofu is made from soybeans, the seeds that grow in the pods of the soybean plant. They contain 40% protein, more than double the protein in beef or fish. They start by soaking the soybeans in cold water for 18 to 24 hours, depending on the season. In winter, beans are stored in outdoor silos and take time to warm to room temperature. Here's what the beans look like before and after soaking. As they absorb the water, they double in size and soften up a bit. The bloated soybeans go on to a conveyor belt where a rotating device transports them to a crushing machine. The machine crushes them into a thick and grainy soup of soybean milk and pulp. It does this by forcing the beans through an internal filtering screen. Next, they transform the soup into a paste by heating it in a steam cooker for 3 to 4 minutes. Then it's into a centrifuge machine. As the chamber spins, the centrifugal force separates the milk and pulp. The milk passes through a cone-shaped filter, while the pulp, called soy meal, sticks to the sides of the chamber. The soy meal goes off to be sold for cattle and pet food. The milk stays behind to be transformed into tofu. Still piping hot, it goes into a coagulation tank to be thickened into curd, but first, they add different herbs and spices, because this batch will be sold as flavored tofu. Then they add the coagulant, magnesium chloride... Along with water to activate it. Then more stirring. It takes about 15 minutes for the soybean milk to congeal into soybean curd, otherwise known as tofu. When it's ready, it's still steaming but pretty soggy, so they run it through a perforated cylinder to drain as much liquid as possible. By the time the tofu comes out the other end of the cylinder, it's relatively dry and roughly the consistency of scrambled eggs. Now it can be processed into those familiar blocks you buy at the supermarket. They transfer the tofu into large rectangular molds lined with cheesecloth. Then it's into a press that applies 130 pounds of pressure. This squeezes out most of the remaining liquid and molds the lumpy, loose tofu into a firm rectangular block measuring 15 by 29 inches. They cut the block lengthwise and widthwise into 54 blocks of 10 1/2 ounces each. Tofu is pretty tasteless, but like a sponge, it absorbs the flavor of whatever it comes into contact with. They drench this batch in a spicy marinade to make jalapeño-flavored tofu. After verifying the weight of each block, they package the tofu with a sprinkle of spices for garnish. Then, to kill off any bacteria, the blocks go into a pasteurizer at 230 degrees fahrenheit for an hour. When they come out, they drop into a cooling basin filled with water just above freezing temperature. They stay submerged for about an hour. Tofu comes either preflavored or plain. It also comes in different textures. Firm tofu maintains its shape in soups and stir-fries, while soft tofu and silken tofu are ideal tofu and silken tofu are ideal for blended dishes and desserts. For blended dishes and desserts. The odds of winning big in a lottery are slim to say the least. Still, we keep hoping that lottery ticket will become our one-way ticket to extreme wealth. Experts say your odds of picking the winning numbers never change no matter how many people buy tickets. Lotteries are by no means a modern invention. The emperors of ancient rome held them for entertainment. European monarchs used state lotteries to help fund their extravagant lifestyles, and the american colonies held lotteries to finance roadwork and construction projects. Pressure from the church and widespread fraud led many countries to ban lotteries during the 1800s, but governments eventually reconsidered. They just couldn't resist they just couldn't resist milking that cash cow. Milking that cash cow. Eye-catching lottery tickets are designed by graphic artists. A technician takes the design, separates it by color, then sends the information to a machine called an image setter, which generates one negative per color. Next, they place the appropriate colored film under each negative and expose it to ultraviolet light. This hardens the color not shielded by the dark portions of the negative. When they wash away the unhardened color, they're left with a color image. They layer the films to make the client a mockup of the finished lottery ticket, in this case a scratch-and-win type. Now they make the printing plates-- one for each color of the design-- first for the non-playing area, everything outside the scratch zone. Each negative goes onto a paper-thin aluminum plate coated with a u.v.-sensitive emulsion. They expose the plate to u.v. light for about 20 seconds. This hardens the unshielded emulsion. The rest is washed away in a chemical bath, leaving the design in relief on the plate. For the ticket's playing area, a similar process is used, but instead of an aluminum plate coated in emulsion, they use one made of photo polymer, a light-sensitive plastic. The finished plates are now ready to go on to the printing press. Their raised service will work just like a rubber ink stamp. The non-playing area goes on first. This method is called offset printing. The press applies up to nine different colors, one after another, from lightest to darkest. High-intensity u.v. lights dry the ink in the mere half-second between color applications. Next comes the playing area. A high-speed ink-jet printer first applies the game numbers, chosen randomly by computer. Infrared lamps dry the ink in a split second. A strobe light enables the press operator to do spot checks as the tickets whiz by at a rate of 16 feet per second. Then the printer gives each ticket a unique bar code. This enables ticket vendors to scan your ticket to see if you've won. It also shows whether a winning ticket is genuine or a forgery. The next machine seals the game numbers with layers of varnish and applies six coats of scratchable ink. An electronic scanner checks the positioning of the scratchable ink, making sure it hides the numbers. The first three scratchable-ink coats are black. The next three are white. All those layers are used to keep cheaters from holding the card up to the light to see the numbers. Now they can finally print the playing area design onto that white background-- in this case, a crossword design. A machine now perforates the rolls of tickets so they can be folded. It processes almost 10 feet of tickets per second. Here's what that looks like in here's what that looks like in slow motion. Slow motion. The next machine folds the tickets along the perforation lines into piles called fan folders. Goodbye, slow motion. Goodbye, slow motion. Here's the actual speed. Here's the actual speed. Before the lottery tickets are shipped out, several samples undergo a quality-control inspection. The company checks that the tickets are properly printed. It also performs a series of scratch tests and chemical tests to make sure they're absolutely to make sure they're absolutely cheatproof. Cheatproof.