I must admit I am learning quite a bit about plants, their uses, and their strange economies. I literally started this post solely on the merits of the song (hence the title), but then it evolved into a completely different thing. Coconuts and limes? Who knew?
Either way, I am coming to discover how incredibly robust the real economies are from agricultural products. Everything we know in modern medicine has some connection to plants, aspirin, rubber, anti-malarials, even medications for STDs. Who would have known?
And I also learned that coconut comes from the Spanish ‘coco’ which roughly translates as monkey head. The Latin/Linnaeaen name for coconut is Cocos nucifera. Nucifera means nut-producing. You can rest easier with that knowledge. Please go about your day.
Today, we will take a quick moment to explore two of the more common botanical foods known to us modern folks, the coconut and the citrus lime (hence the goofy title of this post). These foods have obvious nutritional benefits and these benefits, along with their sturdy portability, have created considerable economies around their cultivation, sale, and consumption. A nice instance of botany intersecting with economics and politics. Let's start w … Read More
My name is Michael Sean Gallagher. I am a Lecturer in Digital Education at the Centre for Research in Digital Education at the University of Edinburgh. I am Co-Founder and Director of Panoply Digital, a consultancy dedicated to ICT and mobile for development (M4D); we have worked with USAID, GSMA, UN Habitat, Cambridge University and more on education and development projects. I was a researcher on the Near Futures Teaching project, a project that explores how teaching at The University of Edinburgh unfold over the coming decades, as technology, social trends, patterns of mobility, new methods and new media continue to shift what it means to be at university. Previously, I was the Research Associate on the NERC, ESRC, and AHRC Global Challenges Research Fund sponsored GCRF Research for Emergency Aftershock Forecasting (REAR) project. I was an Assistant Professor at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies (한국외국어대학교) in Seoul, Korea. I have also completed a doctorate at University College London (formerly the independent Institute of Education, University of London) on mobile learning in the humanities in Korea.
