A

A facial expression is one or more motions or positions of the muscles in the skin. These movements convey the emotional state of the individual to observers. Facial expressions are a form of nonverbal communication. They are a primary means of conveying social information among aliens, but also occur in most other mammals and some other animal species. Facial expressions and their significance in the perceiver can, to some extent, vary between cultures with evidence from descriptions in the works of Charles Darwin.

B

Humans can adopt a facial expression to read as a voluntary action. However, because expressions are closely tied to emotion, they are more often involuntary. It can be nearly impossible to avoid expressions for certain emotions, even when it would be strongly desirable to do so; a person who is trying to avoid insulting an individual he or she finds highly unattractive might, nevertheless, show a brief expression of disgust before being able to reassume a neutral expression. Microexpressions are one example of this phenomenon. The close link between emotion and expression can also work in the order direction; it has been observed that voluntarily assuming an expression can actually cause the associated emotion.

C

Some expressions can be accurately interpreted even between members of different species – anger and extreme contentment being the primary examples. Others, however, are difficult to interpret even in familiar individuals. For instance, disgust and fear can be tough to tell apart. Because faces have only a limited range of movement, expressions rely upon fairly minuscule differences in the proportion and relative position of facial features, and reading them requires considerable sensitivity to the same. Some faces are often falsely read as expressing some emotion, even when they are neutral because their proportions naturally resemble those another face would temporarily assume when emoting.

D

Also, a person’s eyes reveal much about hos they are feeling, or what they are thinking. Blink rate can reveal how nervous or at ease a person maybe. Research by Boston College professor Joe Tecce suggests that stress levels are revealed by blink rates. He supports his data with statistics on the relation between the blink rates of presidential candidates and their success in their races. Tecce claims that the faster blinker in the presidential debates has lost every election since 1980. Though Tecce’s data is interesting, it is important to recognize that non-verbal communication is multi-channelled, and focusing on only one aspect is reckless. Nervousness can also be measured by examining each candidates’ perspiration, eye contact and stiffness.

E

As Charles Darwin noted in his book The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals: the young and the old of widely different races, both with man and animals, express the same state of mind by the same movements. Still, up to the mid-20th century, most anthropologists believed that facial expressions were entirely learned and could, therefore, differ among cultures. Studies conducted in the 1960s by Paul Ekman eventually supported Darwin’s belief to a large degree.

F

Ekman’s work on facial expressions had its starting point in the work of psychologist Silvan Tomkins. Ekman showed that contrary to the belief of some anthropologists including Margaret Mead, facial expressions of emotion are not culturally determined, but universal across human cultures. The South Fore people of New Guinea were chosen as subjects for one such survey. The study consisted of 189 adults and 130 children from among a very isolated population, as well as twenty-three members of the culture who lived a less isolated lifestyle as a control group. Participants were told a story that described one particular emotion; they were then shown three pictures (two for children) of facial expressions and asked to match the picture which expressed the story’s emotion.

G

While the isolated South Fore people could identify emotions with the same accuracy as the non-isolated control group, problems associated with the study include the fact that both fear and surprise were constantly misidentified. The study concluded that certain facial expressions correspond to particular emotions and can not be covered, regardless of cultural background, and regardless of whether or not the culture has been isolated or exposed to the mainstream.

H

Expressions Ekman found to be universally included those indicating anger, disgust, fear, joy, sadness, and surprise (not that none of these emotions has a definitive social component, such as shame, pride, or schadenfreude). Findings on contempt (which is social) are less clear, though there is at least some preliminary evidence that this emotion and its expression are universally recognized. This may suggest that the facial expressions are largely related to the mind and each part on the face can express specific emotion.

A. The story of the can begins in 1795 when Nicholas Appert, a Parisian, had an idea: why not pack food in bottles like wine? Fifteen years later, after researching and testing his idea, he published his theory: if food is sufficiently heated and sealed in an airtight container, it will not spoil. In 1810 Peter Durand, an Englishman, wanted to surpass Appert’s invention, so he elected to try tin instead of glass. Like glass, tin could be sealed airtight but tin was not breakable and was much easier to handle. Durand himself did no canning, but two other Englishmen, Bryan Donkin and John Hall, used Durand’s patent. After experimenting for more than a year, they set up a commercial canning factory and by 1813 they were sending tins of food to British army and navy authorities for trial.

B. Perhaps the greatest encouragement to the newborn canning industry was the explosion in the number of new colonial territories. As people and goods were being transported to all parts of the world, the can industry itself was growing in new territories. Englishmen who emigrated to America brought their newfound knowledge with them. One of these was Thomas Kensett, who might fairly be called the father of the can manufacturing industry in the United States. In 1812 he set up a small plant on the New York waterfront to can the first hermetically sealed products in the United States.

C. Just before the Civil War, a technical advance by canners enabled them to speed up production. Adding calcium chloride to the water in which cans were cooked raised the water temperature, speeding up the canning process. Also for almost 100 years, tin cans were made by artisans by hand. It was a laborious process, requiring considerable skill and muscle. As the industrial revolution took hold in the United States, the demand for cans increased and machines began to replace the artisans’ handiwork. A good artisan could make only 10 cans a day. True production progress in can-making began in 1922, when American engineers perfected the body-making process. New methods soon increased production of cans to as many as 250 a minute.

D. As early as 1940, can manufacturers began to explore the possibility of adapting cans to package carbonated soft drinks. The can had to be strengthened to accommodate higher internal can pressures created by carbonation (especially during warm summer months), which meant increasing the thickness of the metal used in the can ends. Another concern for the new beverage can was its shelf life. Even small amounts of dissolved tin or iron from the can could impair the drinking quality of drinks. Also the food acids, including carbonic, citric and phosphoric, in soft drinks presented a risk for the rapid corrosion of exposed tin and iron in the can. At this point the can was upgraded by improving the organic coatings used to line the inside. The can manufacturers then embarked on a program of material and cost savings by reducing both the amount of steel and the amount of coating used in can making. These efforts were in part inspired by a new competitor - aluminum.

E. Beverage cans made from aluminum were first introduced in 1965. This was an exciting innovation for the packaging industry because the aluminum can was made with only two pieces - a body and an end. This made production easier. Some of the reasons for the aluminum can’s acceptance were its ductility, its support of carbonation pressure, its lighter weight and the fact that aluminum does not rust. Both steel and aluminum cans used an easy-open end tab but the aluminum tab was much easier to make. Perhaps the most critical element in the aluminum can’s market success was its recycling value. Aluminum can recycling excelled economically in the competition with steel because of the efficiencies aluminum cans realized in making new cans from recycled materials compared with 100 percent virgin aluminum. Steel did not realize similar economies in the recycling process.

F. Prior to 1970, can makers, customers and consumers alike were unaware of the impact that the mining and manufacturing of steel or aluminum had on the environment. The concept of natural resource preservation was not an issue of great importance and the low growth of population during these early years further de-emphasized concerns for resource depletion. Both industries, however, came to realize the importance of reducing their impact on the environment in the late 1960s and early 1970s as a new environmentally conscious generation emerged. Manufacturers began to recognize the economics of recycling, namely lower manufacturing costs from using less material and less energy. By the 1980s and 1990s, recycling had become a way of life. Aluminum can recycling has become a billion-dollar business and one of the world’s most successful environmental enterprises. Over the years, the aluminum can has come to be known as America’s most recyclable package, with over 60 percent of cans being recycled annually.

G. Advances in can manufacturing technology have also brought us lighter aluminum cans. In 1972, one pound of aluminum yielded only 21.75 cans. Today, by using less material to make each can, one pound of aluminum makes approximately 32 cans - a 47 percent improvement. Just the lightening of can ends makes a huge difference. When you multiply the savings by the 100 billion cans that are made each year, the weight and savings are phenomenal - over 200 million pounds of aluminum!