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<P><p><div>1. Techniques under the influence of pepper spray / temporarily blinded closed</P><P>I cannot stress this enough: Wallets/purses should not contain anything that you think is worth getting injured over. If you have, take those items out now and put them somewhere safe. Losing your wallet/purse should be all resolved within an hour or so with access to phone and/or computer.</P><P>If someone threatens you with weapons: give them your wallet/purse and run towards safety. Your life is not worth spare change and a few credit cards. Do not let your pride get in the way.If someone injures you with a weapon, you are in big big trouble. In case of a mugging, dump all your valuables away from you and move in the opposite direction as best as you can. In case of a murder attempt Well, your chances of survival are grim. In any case, you might reflect on the unwise decisions that lead you to show up there.</P><P>In muggings, it is rare that weapons are used beyond the threat of use. Injuring or killing someone with a weapon leads to a much stronger police response than just a mugging. However, provoking or bluffing with an attacker is not a sane thing to do. It is about risk vs rewards for the criminal. In addition, your chances of being mugged are probably much less than you think: The BBC has a crime calculator if you were in the UK There are similar data in your local</P><P>------</P><P>2. Do Black Pepper and Black Nightshade share specific characteristics?</P><P>Short answer</P><P>Nigrum is Latin for 'black'. As you write in your post, it's black pepper and black nightshade. Not until the level of Class and Phylum do they share the same taxonomic classification. Hence, the species suffix nigrum doesn't tell you anything about their kinships, other than their physical appearance (they're both black). Background</P><P>In general, the species part of the linnaeus nomenclature has nothing to do with evolutionary relationships. Instead, it is the higher classifications that denote kinships, for example, as you already suggest, the genus name, that may have various related species in it (Fig. 1). The species you mention are of a different genus.The Species: Piper nigrum belongs to the Genus Piper, Family: Piperaceae, Order: Piperales, Class: Magnoliopsida, Phylum (Division): Magnoliophyta, Kingdom: Plantae, and Domain: EukaryaThe Species Solanum niger belongs to the Genus Solanum, Family: Solanaceae, Order: Solanales, Class: Magnoliopsida (Dicotyledons), Phylum (Division): Magnoliophyta, Kingdom: Plantae, and Domain: Eukarya.They share only the same Class (and hence Phylum, Kingdom, Domain). For comparison, in the Kingdom of Animalia, we have the Phylum Chordata (vertebrates), that splits up into the Classes Mammalia (Mammals), Actinopterygii (Bony Fish), Chondrichthyes (Cartilaginous Fish), Aves (Birds), Amphibia (Amphibians) and Reptilia (Reptiles). So your two plant species share as much in common at the taxonomical level, as Mammals and bony fish.Piper nigrum (or black pepper), is a climbing vine in the Piperaceae (pepper family) native to the Malabar region of southwestern India. Black pepper is grown in various tropical regions, including India, Indonesia, and Brazil, as it is one of the most important spices in the world.Solanum nigrum (or European black nightshade) is a species in the Solanum genus, native to Eurasia and introduced in the Americas, Australasia, and South Africa. It is also known as black nightshade, duscle, garden nightshade, Indian nightshade, garden huckleberry, hound's berry, petty morel, wonder berry, small-fruited black nightshade, or popolo.</P><P>Fig. 1. Linnaeus nomenclature</P><P>------</P><P>3. Does human survival depend on bees?</P><P>From Keith S. Delaplane, Professor, Dept. Entomology,</P><P>University of Georgia:Did Einstein say this?There is no good evidence that Albert Einstein actually said this. In fact he most assuredly did not. All you have to do is google Einstein bees, and youll get the whole story: how this quote surfaced for the first time in the early 1990s, long after Einsteins death, and in contexts far removed from the possibility of verification.Is it true, nonetheless?If I were to summarize the latest answers to the questions above, it would be something like this: Does human life depend on bee pollination? No. To what extent does the quality of human life depend on bee pollination? Well, it depends on where you live and what crops were talking about.How much of our food is dependent on bees?The authors of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization data analysis concluded that the proportion of global food production attributable to animal pollination ranges from 5% in industrialized nations to 8% in the developing world.Do bees matter?I think bee advocates do their cause a disservice when they stoke the flames of hyperbole and sensationalism. Much better to pose the question as a quality of life issue. To the extent that we value a diverse food supply with minimized trauma to the environments where it is produced, we will place a high value indeed on honey bees and other pollinators.For the curious, the study of the FAO data categorized crops into one of 5 categories, based on their level of pollinator dependence. 0: no dependence; 1: 0-10% reduction without pollinators; 2: 10-40% reduction without pollinators; 3: 40-90% reduction without pollinators; and 4: >90% reduction without pollinators.</P><P>------</P><P>4. What's this yellow plum-like fruit with a spiky stone? West Africa</P><P>I am from Sierra Leone and this is called Chook-Chook Plum. Thorns & prickly things are termed chook-chook in Krio, hence the name. However, June Plum is what you will find on the internet.</P><P>------</P><P>5. Allergic to the whole pepper family - what can I use in its place?</P><P>Grains of paradise are peppery but don't seem to be too closely related to black pepper, so perhaps you won't be allergic to them. They're a bit smaller than peppercorns but can still be ground in pepper grinders</P><P>------</P><P>6. Who cut the cheese? closed</P><P>First I visited RhymeZone. Second I wrote this:Freeze tease, Squeeze that sneeze, Breeze don't wheeze, Geez, cheese is the keys.I won't hold anyone personally responsible if I don't win.</div></P><P></p></P>
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