Wood Presentation

A tree transfers water and nutrients to the leaves and other growing tissues, and has a support function.

Wood can be dated by dendrochronology. Tree-ring widths gives clues to the prevailing climate at that time

Wood is noted to be used in many ancient cultures and even since eras preceding the Paleolithic and the Neolithic.

Wood economy are common in nations with low temperature climate.

The World's largest producer,and also consumer of this wood "officially accounted" is the United States of America, even if the country that possesses the greatest area of forests is Russia, America consumes more.

According to American Forests corporation, the forest cover in the Baltimore-Washington area decreased from 51% in 1973 to 39% in 1997

In the U.S. today, perhaps only 60% of the land originally in forest 400 years ago is still forested.

The totem poles (carved by North American indigenous people from conifer trunks, often Western Red Cedar.)

Almost all boats were made out of wood up until 19th century.

Many types of sports equipment is made from different kinds of wood.

Many types of musical instruments have been historically crafted with wood.

Wood from trees and bushes, are often employed in a wide variety, including those produced from wood pulp for making paper, in to celluloid in early photographic film, cellophane and even used in fertilizer.

Wood chemical plants: factories converted logs into charcoal, methanol (wood alcohol), and acetate of lime or acetic acid. The factories used smaller hardwood that lumber mills wouldn't use. The basic process was to heat , in the absence of oxygen, the wood to a very high temperature which would drive off its chemicals and turn the remaining wood to charcoal. The charcoal was cooled, and most of it subsequently sold to iron producer.

Wood has a long history of being used as fuel, which we still use today. Hardwood is preferred over softwood because it creates less smoke and burns longer.

Wood can also be a gas generator. "Poor gas" is obtained after the burning of the dried wood in an environment which is low in oxygen and with a limited amount of atmospheric air, at temperatures of 900 degrees Celsius, all within an internal combustion engine, wood becomes a useful gas. During WWI and WWII because of the lack of oil, in many European countries, like France, Great Britain, Italy and Sweden, many gasoline powered cars were converted to wood gas generated cars, which involved installing a wood gas generator to your car. However there were some problems, some being : great reduction of maximum speed and the need to drive using low gears.

Recently a few Italian scientists announced a breakthrough that wood could be helpful with bone substitute. It is likely to take at least five years before this technique will be applied for humans

Further developments include within wood: new lignin glue ( glue made from wood) applications, recyclable food packaging, anti-bacterial medical agents, and high strength fabrics.