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Salt

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Salt is a dietary mineral composed primarily of sodium chloride that is essential for animal life, but toxic to most land plants. Salt flavor is one of the basic tastes, an important preservative and a popular food seasoning.

Salt for human consumption is produced in different forms: unrefined salt (such as sea salt), refined salt (table salt), and iodized salt. It is a crystalline solid, white, pale pink or light gray in color, normally obtained from sea water or rock deposits. Edible rock salts may be slightly grayish in color because of this mineral content.

Chloride and sodium ions, the two major components of salt, are necessary for the survival of all known living creatures, including humans. Salt is involved in regulating the water content (fluid balance) of the body. Salt cravings may be caused by trace mineral deficiencies as well as by a deficiency of sodium chloride itself. Conversely, overconsumption of salt increases the risk of health problems, including high blood pressure.

For more information about Salt, read the full article at Wikipedia.
This text uses material from Wikipedia and is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.


News tagged with salt

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Researchers develop cheap, easy 'kitchen chemistry' to perform formerly complex synthesis

Chemistry / Analytical Chemistry

created Dec 04, 2009 | popularity 4.6 / 5 (12) | comments 0

A team at The Scripps Research Institute has made major strides in solving a problem that has been plaguing chemists for many years: how best to break carbon-hydrogen bonds and then to create new bonds to join molecules together. ...


Cholera bacteria show adaptability to changing environments

Cholera bacteria show adaptability to changing environments

Biology / Cell & Microbiology

created Dec 08, 2009 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

(PhysOrg.com) -- The deadly bacterium behind cholera epidemics spends only a fraction of its life infecting humans. Most of the time, Vibrio cholerae lurks in estuaries and other semisalty aquatic habitats.


French scientist Herwan Amire shows two pink winkle in Xelha's Cove,  south of Cancun

Mexico's conch shells yield clues into effects of warming

Biology / Ecology

created Dec 22, 2009 | popularity 3 / 5 (1) | comments 0

Divers plumb the turquoise depths of ocean waters some 100 kilometers south of this vacation paradise, in search of the distinctive queen conch shell prized by vacationers and souvenir-seekers.





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As shuttle's career nears an end, NASA turns focus to satellites

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created 18 hours ago | popularity 4.3 / 5 (7) | comments 0

NASA heads into 2010 with the bittersweet assignment of retiring the space shuttle after nearly three decades. But that's not all the agency has planned: There are also launches of three new satellites aimed at better understanding ...


Dental delight! Tooth of sea urchin shows formation of biominerals

Dental delight! Tooth of sea urchin shows formation of biominerals

Chemistry / Materials Science

created Dec 21, 2009 | popularity 5 / 5 (4) | comments 0

(PhysOrg.com) -- Some of the most common minerals in biology, including those in bones and shells, have a mysterious structure: Their crystals are positioned in the same orientation, making them behave as ...


Faster, cheaper DNA sequencing method developed

Faster, cheaper DNA sequencing method developed

Nanotechnology / Bio & Medicine

created Dec 20, 2009 | popularity 4.4 / 5 (25) | comments 10

(PhysOrg.com) -- Boston University biomedical engineers have devised a method for making future genome sequencing faster and cheaper by dramatically reducing the amount of DNA required, thus eliminating the ...


Tiny whispering gallery

Tiny whispering gallery: Sensor can detect a single nanoparticle and take its measurement

Physics / Optics & Photonics

created Dec 18, 2009 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (16) | comments 0

(PhysOrg.com) -- Nanotechnology has already made it to the shelves of your local pharmacy and grocery: nanoparticles are found in anti-odor socks, makeup, makeup remover, sunscreen, anti-graffiti paint, home ...


Research project yields better understanding of the defective protein that causes cystic fibrosis

Research project yields better understanding of the defective protein that causes cystic fibrosis

Chemistry / Biochemistry

created Dec 18, 2009 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

A team of researchers studying the protein that, when defective or absent, causes cystic fibrosis (CF) has made an important discovery about how that protein is normally controlled and under what circumstances ...


Monument lifted from Cleopatra's underwater city (AP)

Monument lifted from Cleopatra's underwater city

Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils

created Dec 17, 2009 | popularity 4.9 / 5 (8) | comments 0

(AP) -- Archaeologists on Thursday hoisted a 9-ton temple pylon from the waters of the Mediterranean that was part of the palace complex of the fabled Cleopatra before it became submerged for centuries in ...


Sick of swine flu? Toxic algae could be the next big threat

Space & Earth / Environment

created Dec 15, 2009 | popularity 3 / 5 (2) | comments 1

With a new theory surfacing that toxic algae rather than asteroids killed the dinosaurs, scientists are still trying to unravel the mystery of what caused a massive algae bloom off the Northwest Coast that left thousands ...


Prussian blue linked to the origin of life

Prussian blue linked to the origin of life

Chemistry / Biochemistry

created Dec 14, 2009 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (6) | comments 0

A team of researchers from the Astrobiology Centre (INTA-CSIC) has shown that hydrogen cyanide, urea and other substances considered essential to the formation of the most basic biological molecules can be ...


Lithium

Lithium to be extracted from geothermal waste

Technology / Energy

created Dec 14, 2009 | popularity 5 / 5 (15) | comments 4

(PhysOrg.com) -- A technique developed by a Californian company, Simbol Mining, will enable the valuable mineral lithium, widely used in high-density batteries, to be reclaimed from the hot waste water produced ...


Scientists use nanosensors for first time to measure cancer biomarkers in blood

Scientists use nanosensors for first time to measure cancer biomarkers in blood

Nanotechnology / Bio & Medicine

created Dec 13, 2009 | popularity 5 / 5 (13) | comments 3

A team led by Yale University researchers has used nanosensors to measure cancer biomarkers in whole blood for the first time. Their findings, which appear December 13 in the advanced online publication of ...



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