The Meyer lemon is a citrus fruit native to China, thought to be a cross between a true lemon and a mandarin orange or sweet orange. The Meyer lemon was introduced to the United States in 1908 by the agricultural explorer Frank Nicholas Meyer, an employee of the United States Department of Agriculture who collected a sample of the plant on a trip to China. It is commonly grown in China potted as an ornamental plant.

The fruit is yellow and rounder than a true lemon with a slight orange tint when ripe. It has a sweeter, less acidic flavor than the more common grocery store varieties of lemon and has a fragrant edible skin. All lemons are widely known as powerful digestive aids. The combination of high acidity and fiber are effective in cleansing digestion organs.

The white coating or inner rind of a lemon contains the highest vitamin content per volume of most any food. Some studies show that the white coating of a single lemon can contain ten times the amount of Vitamin C as an entire bottle of Vitamin C supplements.

A lemon battery is a device used in experiments proposed in many science textbooks around the world. It is made by inserting two different metallic objects, for example a galvanized nail and a copper coin, into a lemon. The copper coin serves as the positive electrode or cathode and the galvanized nail as the electron-producing negative electrode or anode. These two objects work as electrodes, causing an electrochemical reaction which generates a small potential difference.

In practice, a single lemon battery is incapable of lighting a light bulb. One would need about 500 lemons wired in parallel to light a standard flashlight bulb.

Parsley is a bright green biennial herb, often used as spice. It is common in Middle Eastern, European, and American cooking. It is used for its leaf in much the same way as coriander, although parsley has a milder flavor.

A type of parsley is grown as a root vegetable in Central and Eastern European. It produces much thicker roots than those cultivated for their leaves. Although little known in Britain and the United States it can be used in soups and stews. Parsnips are among the closest relatives of parsley, although root parsley tastes quite different.

Parsley is widely used as a companion plant in gardens. It attracts predatory insects including wasps and predatory flies to gardens, which then tend to protect plants nearby. For example, they are especially useful for protecting tomato plants as the wasps that kill tomato hornworms also eat nectar from parsley. While parsley is biennial, not blooming until its second year, even in its first year it is reputed to help cover up the strong scent of the tomato plant, reducing pest attraction.

Chinese and German herbologists recommend parsley tea to help control high blood pressure, and the Cherokees used it as a tonic to strengthen the bladder. When crushed and rubbed on the skin, parsley can reduce the itching of mosquito bites. When chewed, parsley can freshen bad breath.

Parsley should not be consumed as a drug or supplement by pregnant women. Parsley is high in oxalic acid, a compound involved in the formation of kidney stones. Parsley oil contains furanocoumarins and psoralens which can lead to extreme photosensitivity if used orally.

Bert Kaempfert was a German orchestra leader and songwriter. He made easy listening and jazz oriented records and wrote the music for a number of well-known songs, such as Strangers in the Night and Spanish Eyes.

He was born in Hamburg, Germany, where he received his lifelong nickname, “Fips”. He studied at the School of Music and was hired by Hans Busch to play with his orchestra before serving as a bandsman in the German Navy during World War II. He later formed his own big band, toured with them, then worked as an arranger and producer.

One contributor to Kaempfert’s music was guitarist-bassist Ladislav “Ladi” Geisler, who popularized the famous “knackbass” (crackling bass) sound, which became the most distinctive feature of many Kaempfert recordings. It is a treble staccato bass guitar sound in which the bass string is plucked with a pick and immediately suppressed to cancel out any sustain.

Tahitian Sunset was sampled extensively by the lo-fi dance artists Lemon Jelly as their track In the Bath.

Shallots probably originated in Asia, traveling from there to India and the eastern Mediterranean. The name “shallot” comes from Ashkelon, presently a city in Israel, where people in classical Greek times believed shallots originated. It is a relative of the onion, and tastes a bit like an onion, but has a sweeter, milder flavor. Finely sliced deep-fried shallots are used as a condiment in Asian cuisine.

Like garlic, shallots are formed in clusters of offsets with a head composed of multiple cloves. Their skin color can vary from golden brown to gray to rose red, and their off-white flesh is usually tinged with green or magenta. Shallots are much favored by chefs because of their firm texture and sweet, aromatic yet pungent flavor.

Shallots are propagated by offsets, which, in the Northern Hemisphere, are often planted in September or October, but the principal crop should not be planted earlier than February or the beginning of March. In planting, the tops of the bulbs should be kept a little above ground, and it is a commendable plan to draw away the soil surrounding the bulbs when their roots have taken hold. They come to maturity about July or August, although in cooler climates they can be harvested later.

The shallot in Iran is often crushed into yogurt. Iranians enjoy yogurt in this way, especially in restaurants and Kebab-Saras where kebabs are served. Most shallots are grown wild, harvested, sliced, dried, and sold at markets. Buyers will often soak the shallots for a number of days then boil them to get a milder flavor. Crispy shallot chips are also used in Southern Chinese cuisine. In Indonesia, sometimes it is made into pickle which is usually added in variable kinds of traditional food. Its sourness increases one’s appetite.

The sticky monkey flower is a flowering plant that grows in a shrub form, native to North America from southwestern Oregon south through most of California. It grows up to 4 feet tall and has deep green sticky leaves. The flowers are tubular at the base and occur in a variety of shades from white to red, the most common color being a light orange. They are pollinated by bees and hummingbirds.

The stickiness of the leaves and sepals comes from glandular secretions. This resin, which makes up almost 30% of the leaf’s weight, helps to lessen the impact of the larvae of the Euphydryas chalcedona butterfly. The resin that the larvae consume inhibits their growth and protects the plant to some degree.

They are called monkey flowers because the species has flowers shaped like a monkey’s face. The Latin name mimus meaning “mimic actor” originates from the Greek mimos meaning “imitator”. When an insect touches the stigma of the flower, it immediately folds its tips together, thus exposing the anthers so that the insect becomes dusted with pollen. This can be observed by touching the stigma with a pencil.

The Coast Miwok placed the crushed leaves on sores and burns. The roots have been used to treat fever, dysentery, diarrhea, and to curtail hemorrhages. The Pomo have used a decoction made from Sticky Monkey Flower to treat sore, bloodshot eyes which affected many of the men and women who lived in smoky, poorly ventilated dwellings. The flowers commonly have been used to ornament Miwok wreaths and children’s hair.

A gourd is a name given to the hollow, dried shell of a fruit in the Cucurbitaceae family of plants of the genus Lagenaria. It is in the same family as the pumpkin. Gourds are the product of the calabash or African bottle gourd, native to Africa, which at a very early date spread throughout the world by human migration. This species may be the oldest plant domesticated by humans.

Gourds were originally used by people as containers or vessels before clay or stone pottery. The original and evolutional shape of clay pottery is thought to have been modeled on the shape of certain gourd varieties.

In addition to utilitarian uses, gourds have seen other functions throughout history in various cultures. Very early specimens of squash shells discovered in Peru indicate the use of squashes as means of recording events of the time. In North America, the carving of pumpkins and some other squashes into Jack-o-Lanterns is a popular cultural activity during Halloween.

The shell of the gourd, when dried, has a wooden appearance. Drying gourds, which takes months in some cases, causes the internal contents to dry out completely, although seeds are often still capable of germination. For the uninitiated, cutting open a dried gourd can present hazards. The resulting dust is extremely fine and can cause respiratory problems.

It has also been found that gourd skins were used to replace missing portions of skulls in Neolithic times as part of surgery. This is seen as evidence of prostheses made of very fine gold sheet and gourd skins, which were inserted in the skull under the skin or to cover the hole left by an operation.

Generally, gourds are used more for utilitarian uses than for food. Only a few varieties are harvested for consumption, mostly in Asia. White gourd juice is a common beverage retailed in China and Chinese outlets outside China. It has a unique, smokey taste.

The Feijoa, also known as Pineapple Guava, is an evergreen shrub or small tree growing 4 to 20 feet in height, originating from the highlands of southern Brazil and parts of Colombia, Uruguay and northern Argentina. It is named after botanist João da Silva Feijó, a Brazilian botanist.

The fruit, maturing in autumn, is green, ellipsoid and about the size of a chicken’s egg. It has a sweet, aromatic flavor. The flesh is juicy and is divided into a clear jelly-like seed pulp and a firmer, slightly gritty, opaque flesh nearer the skin. The fruit drops when ripe, but can be picked from the tree prior to the drop to prevent bruising.

Feijoa is usually eaten by cutting it in half, then scooping out the pulp with a spoon. The fruit have a juicy sweet seed pulp, and slightly gritty flesh nearer the skin. The flavour is aromatic and sweet. Like the closely-related guava, the fruit pulp is utilized in some natural cosmetic products as an exfoliant.

It can also be used as an interesting addition to a fruit smoothie, and can be used to make feijoa wine or cider. It is also possible to buy Feijoa yogurt, fruit drinks, jam and ice cream in New Zealand. The Feijoa can also be cooked and used in dishes where one would use stewed fruit. It is a popular ingredient in chutney.

Fruit maturity is not always apparent from the outside as the fruits remain green until they are over-mature or rotting. Once the seed pulp and surrounding flesh start to brown, the fruit is over-mature but still can be eaten. However, these over-mature but not rotten fruits can be used to make a delicious juice very popular in the Colombian Highlands.

Feijoa has been spotted in Georgia and both flowering and fruiting in Louisiana, South Carolina, Texas and California. It is widely cultivated as a garden plant and fruiting tree in New Zealand, and can be found as a garden plant in Australia, Israel and China. The shrub has very few insect pests. In northern California, robins, mockingbirds, hummingbirds, starlings, scrub jays, towhees and grey squirrels feast on the flowers and assist with pollination.

Questioning the parameters of being human and its relationship with nature has been of philosophical interest before and since Socrates. Questioning the future of the human brings to light moral, religious and philosophical belief systems and, especially, ethical concerns regarding tampering with human nature and what is considered by many, especially in Western culture, to be natural.

The etymology of the term Transhuman goes back to futurist FM-2030 (born Fereidoun M. Esfandiary) who, while teaching new concepts of the human at The New School university in 1966, introduced it as shorthand for “transitory human”. Calling Transhumans the “earliest manifestation of new evolutionary beings,” FM-2030 argued that signs of Transhumanism included physical and mental augmentations including prostheses, reconstructive surgery, intensive use of telecommunications, a cosmopolitan outlook and a globetrotting lifestyle, androgyny, absence of religious beliefs, and a rejection of traditional family values.

Many thinkers today do not consider FM-2030′s characteristics to be essential attributes of a Transhuman. However, analyzing the possible transitional nature of the human species has been and continues to be of primary interest to anthropologists and philosophers within and outside the intellectual movement of Transhumanism.

Jeffrey McKee of the Ohio State University said the new findings of accelerated evolution bear out predictions he made in a 2000 book The Riddled Chain. Based on computer models, he argued that evolution should speed up as a population grows because population growth creates more opportunities for new mutations; and the expanded population occupies new environmental niches, which would drive evolution in new directions. Whatever the implications of the recent findings, McKee concludes that they highlight a ubiquitous point about evolution: every species is a transitional species.