Grain (unit)

A grain is a unit of measurement of mass equal to 7001647989100000000♠64.79891 milligrams. It is nominally based upon the mass of a single seed of a cereal. From the Bronze Age into the Renaissance the average masses of wheat and barley grains were part of the legal definition of units of mass. However, there is no evidence of any country ever having used actual seeds or cereal grains. Rather, expressions such as "thirty-two grains of wheat, taken from the middle of the ear" appear to have been ritualistic formulas, essentially the premodern equivalent of legal boilerplate.

The grain was the legal foundation of traditional English weight systems, and is the only unit that is equal throughout the troy, avoirdupois, and apothecaries' systems of mass. The unit was based on the weight of a single grain of barley, considered equivalent to 1 ¹⁄₃ grains of wheat. The fundamental unit of the pre-1527 English weight system known as Tower weights, was a different sort of grain known as the "wheat grain". The Tower wheat grain was defined as exactly ⁴⁵⁄₆₄ of a troy grain.

Grain

Grains are small, hard, dry seeds, with or without attached hulls or fruit layers, harvested for human or animal consumption. Agronomists also call the plants producing such seeds "grain crops". The two main types of commercial grain crops are cereals such as wheat and rye, and legumes such as beans and soybeans. Ubiquity of grain as a food source encouraged use of the term to describe other particles with volume or mass similar to an individual seed.

After being harvested, dry grains are more durable than other staple foods such as starchy fruits (plantains, breadfruit, etc.) and tubers (sweet potatoes, cassava, and more). This durability has made grains well suited to industrial agriculture, since they can be mechanically harvested, transported by rail or ship, stored for long periods in silos, and milled for flour or pressed for oil. Thus, major global commodity markets exist for canola, maize, rice, soybeans, wheat, and other grains but not for tubers, vegetables, or other crops.

Unit

Unit may refer to:

Science, technology, and medicine

Unit train

A unit train, also called a block train or a trainload service, is a train in which all cars (wagons) carry the same commodity and are shipped from the same origin to the same destination, without being split up or stored en route. This saves time and money, as well as the hassle, delays and confusion associated with assembling and disassembling trains at rail yards near the origin and destination. It also enables railways to compete more effectively with road and internal waterway transport systems, However, unit trains are economical only for high-volume customers. Since unit trains often carry only one commodity, cars are of all the same type, and sometimes the cars are all identical apart from possible variations in livery.

Non-unit train operations may be referred to as wagonload trains.

Use

Unit trains are typically used for the transportation of bulk goods. These can be solid substances such as:

Special Unit 2

Special Unit 2 is an American sci-fi/comedy television series, filmed in Vancouver, BC that aired on UPN for two seasons from April 2001 through February 2002. The show focused upon the exploits of a top-secret Chicago police division known as Special Unit 2, charged with policing the city's large population of mythological beings, known as "Links".

Plot

"Links" are the common monsters from folklore and mythology (except vampires, whose existence is specifically identified as preposterous), and are described as being the missing link between apes and humans (although other human-like species have evolved, for instance gargoyles, who are identified as humanoid descendants of dinosaurs). They live in hiding and/or disguise among the human population. On occasions when Links are seen by humans, they are usually dismissed as hallucinations or optical illusions, except by those who are especially perceptive. Special Unit 2 is the top-secret division of the Chicago police specifically designated to handle Link-related cases. Other units of the police department are specifically ordered to stay out of Special Unit 2's way, which provides a great deal of leeway and access for cases.