Have You Tried…?

There was a huge rumble in the “stop hair loss” products industry in January 2007 when the FDA approved the HairMax Laser Comb® for promotion of hair growth in males with androgenetic alopecia (Norwood IIA to V with Fitzpatrick skin types I to IV). The FDA has only approved two other products as solutions to help stop hair loss, so this was indeed a major breakthrough. Why does the FDA believe this laser comb promotes hair growth?

The HairMax Laser Comb and other laser combs (there are many on the market), are successful in helping thinning, limp, and lack-luster hair with the use of Low Level Laser Therapy (LLLT) applied to the scalp and hair through a handheld comb (brush, or device depending on the product). Understanding how LLLT works is the key to understanding how laser combs help prevent hair loss and make hair thicker.

Low Lever Laser Therapy (LLLT) has been in use since the 1960’s and was developed by Endre Mester to improve the healing of wounds. Since that time, the use of LLLT for medical treatments has expanded for many other therapeutic uses including clinically proven prevention of hair loss.

The science behind low-level laser light comes from the compressed light from the cold red part of the light spectrum. This light is completely different from natural light. This light’s color is precise and exists on a single wavelength. Because it is on one wavelength, it travels in a perfectly straight and defined point.

Low-level laser light can penetrate the skin surface without damaging the skin; it does not give off heat and has no known side effects. This penetrating light’s energy stimulates the body’s cells and in the specific use of the laser comb, promotes healthy rejuvenation of hair.

Read more about Laser Combs

Tapas are small snacks served in a bar or tavern. Similar to hors’d'ourves and amuse bouche’ in France, anti-pasto in Italy, and meze in Greece and Turkey, these “little dishes” are an increasingly popular alternative to full-scale meals in restaurants or at home.

Unlike American bars, where customers snack on pretzels or popcorn with their drinks, the tapas served in Spain are a much more upscale presentation of marinated mozzarella balls, fried squid and miniature sandwiches served on small plates.

Although these small entrees are meant to be savored in small bites while sipping sangria with friends, they are often combined to create a complete meal.

Giant Miscanthus, a tall, perennial grass, is the sterile cross between two plants, and a mule is the sterile result of a cross between a horse and a donkey.

The $1 million question is whether Giant Miscanthus, like a mule, can take on a heavy load - in this case, the job of freeing the U.S. from its dependence on overseas petroleum. Giant Miscanthus is one of the leading candidates for cellulosic ethanol production.

University of Illinois researchers have successfully established Giant Miscanthus at northern, central and southern Illinois sites, ranging from DeKalb to Dixon Springs. .

A new U.S. $1 coin, bearing the likeness of George Washington, was pressed into circulation in time for 275th celebration of the first president’s birthday.

The Federal Reserve, distribution agent for the U.S. Mint, placed orders for 300 million of the Washington coins, which are gold in color and slightly larger and thicker than a quarter.

The design on the coin will change every three months, featuring a new president in the order in which they served.

After Washington, the presidents due to be honored in 2007 are John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. The program is scheduled to run into 2016. A former president must have been dead at least two years to appear on a coin.

Pecan oil will soon take its place alongside other cooking oils like corn, olive, peanut, canola and sunflower on grocer’s shelves.

“This healthy nut now has a new cooking product that, although not cheap, broadens the availability of pecan products on the market,” said Wojciech Florkowski, an agricultural economist with the University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.

Read more about pecan oil.

Can you eat your peppers and enjoy looking at them too?

Yes, you can.

Peppers don’t have to be just green and bell shaped and relegated to the supermarket shelf or home garden plot. This genus of plants has the genetic potential to provide a wide array of possibilities for the kitchen and the ornamental garden and sometimes both at once.

Since 1991, John Stommel, of the ARS Vegetable Laboratory, and Robert Griesbach, of the ARS Floral and Nursery Plants Research Unit, both in Beltsville, Maryland, have bred peppers to please both the eye and the palate.

The eye-catching Black Pearl, released in 2005 and honored as a 2006 All-America Selections (AAS) winner, attests to their success in developing new cultivars with both aesthetic and culinary appeal. The award recognizes new flower and vegetable varieties that demonstrate “superior garden performance” in trials conducted throughout the country.

Black Pearl is a robust plant, adaptable to environments from New England to California, Stommel says. In addition, it resists attacks from many insects and fungi and is remarkably drought-tolerant. It can also serve as a hot pepper for the kitchen, making it a dual purpose pepper for today’s smaller urban gardens. Since its release, more than 2 million seeds have been sold.

Black Pearl has company. Tangerine Dream is a sweet, edible ornamental pepper that produces small orange banana-shaped fruit on a prostrate plant.

Read more about the new ornamental peppers. 

Body jewelry is not merely a decorative fixture; it is also a personal style statement. You can use it to bring attention or to take away attention from a specific part of your body. It is quite in vogue these days and has been in existence since time immemorial. If you have the attitude and the panache you can carry of any kind of body jewelry.

Since ancient times body jewelry has been a part of the culture and heritage of different religions. It has been known to be an essential part of the clothing and appearance of the people in many regions of the world. At different parts of time through the centuries it was also used to signify the class demarcations prevalent in society at that point of time.

More about body jewelry

The fruit of a woody climbing shrub, guarana is a round orange-red capsule about 1 inch in diameter. When ripe, the capsule splits partially open, revealing a black seed covered with white flesh only on its innermost side. The edible portion, the seed with the white flesh removed, is rich in caffeine.

Guarana is one of the best loved fruits in Brazil and much folklore is based around it. The fruit has an uncanny resemblance to the human eye as it “peers” out of its opened bright orange-red capsule.

A legend of the Sataré Maué Indians explains why the seeds resemble eyes. A beautiful Indian woman named Onhiauacabe gave birth toa child sired by a mysterious being. This child was killed for eating some forbidden nuts, and at his burial site a guarana bush grew from his eye. According to the legend, the bush also brought forth a child from whom the Maua tribe descended.

Ingesting the seeds produces high energy levels, which the Indians attributed to supernatural powers, but which we now know is the effect of caffeine.

To the Indians, the seeds were not only a stimulant, they were an aphrodisiac and a means to prolong life. They roasted and ground the seeds, mixed them with manioc meal, and rolled the resulting paste into sticks, which were allowed to harden. Using the rough-surfaced tongue of the pirarucu fish as a grater, they broke off small pieces of the dried guarana paste and rehydrated them in water to make a dried.

Guarana is available today in a variety of forms, including a very popular carbonated soft drink of the same name, a syrup, a powder, in capsules and in sticks made by the caboclos.

More about Guarana.

The basalt cliffs of southern Idaho’s Snake River Canyon are a far cry from the bayous of Louisiana or the everglades of Florida, but in one corner of the flood-carved gorge there are alligators swishing their long tails and batting their mellifluous eyes.

Fish farmer Leo Ray, a native Oklahoman who introduced catfish aquaculture to Idaho more than 30 years ago, raises alligators for their meat and hides. On average, the meat and return about $300 per animal.

Alligator is a common menu item in Southern states where the large reptiles are raised and harvested primarily for their hides. Farmers raise the reptiles for about a year, or until they are about four feet long and then slaughter them all at once. In Idaho, Ray does things a little different. He raises his gators for 18 months until they are six feet long and then processes them a few at a time.

“A four foot gator, while it’s big enough for the hide market, only weighs about 20 pounds. A six-footer weighs 50 pounds,” Ray noted. “It’ll take an extra six months to get that two feet, but we get all that extra weight.”

The Idaho-raised gators are slaughtered gradually so as to provide a steady source of fresh meat to West Coast markets without freezing.

“The secret to marketing something like this is continuous supply,” Ray said. He intends to sell the gator meat to the chefs of upscale West Coast restaurants who are willing to pay a premium price for a quality product. Alligator tail meat from Idaho will likely sell for $10 a pound; thigh meat will go for $5-6 a pound.

The “green” or untanned skin sells, on average, for $35 a foot. A tanned skin sells for $40 to $50 a foot. More than 600 alligator hides from Idaho have been sold to Gucci in Europe at $300 per hide to make purses sold at up to $20,000.

Alligators, like catfish, require a year-round supply of warm water in which to thrive and Idaho isn’t commonly thought of as a place to raise them. But the hot water bubbling to the surface on Ray’s property is plenty warm for both, measuring a steady 94 degrees. The geothermal resource, which flows at 4,000 gallons per minute, makes the cold-blooded enterprise economical. Ray mixes the warm water from the springs with colder surface water to reach the ideal gator temperature of 85-90 degrees.

At most gator farms heat and food account for the greatest portion of the farmer’s operating expenses. At Fish Breeders of Idaho both are nearly free. The geothermal springs heat the tanks and provide the water that both fish and gators need to survive, and the reptiles will feed happily on the dead fish and scraps from the firm’s fish processing plant.

Raising gators actually saves the fish farm money by recycling waste products that would otherwise have to be hauled away. “In the processing plant and on the fish farms, you have a lot of dead fish every day, and by-product,” Ray pointed out. “We were looking for something we could feed that to that would have an economic value and gators fit the bill,”

While gator farmers in Louisiana figure they need $25 a foot for hides in order to break even, Ray’s break-even wis about $12 a foot. Alligator farming is so economical, in fact, that he’s figuring ways to raise less fish and more gators.

“It takes a lot of water to raise a fish and we’re near our capacity now,” Ray explained. “But with alligators I can raise 10 times the poundage of meat with the same amount of water because they’re not depending on the water to breath. They only need enough water to keep them damp and warm.”

The young alligators are raised in round insulated plastic tubs with a steady flow of hot water to keep them warm and wet. Ray feeds them fish scraps and some fish food pellets.

As they grow to three feet or longer, Ray moves the gators into a large round tanks 40 feet in diameter. From there they are harvested at 18 months of age.

Copyright © 2007 by Michael Hofferber. All rights reserved.

Persimmon, Diospyros virginiana, is a deciduous tree that can be found growing in dry woodlands, limestone glades, prairies, thickets, abandoned fields and along roadsides.

In spring, tiny yellow bell-shaped flowers adorn newly leafed-out branches. The foliage is dark green and glossy above, paler below. It turns buttery-yellow in autumn, infrequently reddish-purple. One to two-inch berries change from green to yellow to dark orange in color before maturing in late fall. The fruit is edible and can be rather astringent before a flavor-taming frost. Dark, deeply ridged bark maintains interest through the winter.

The persimmon has a variety of uses outside of the ornamental landscape. Its suckering growth habit can be used for naturalized areas and erosion control. Its fruit makes it a perfect choice for wildlife plantings and for human consumption. The pulp can be used in a variety of baked goods, syrups, jellies and ice cream. The seeds have been used as a coffee substitute; the leaves can be brewed for a tea; the flowers are useful in honey-making. A relative of ebony, persimmon wood has also been valued in the production of textile shuttles, golf club heads and parquet flooring.