  During last decade large samples of data have been collected on the
production of the ground-state pseudoscalar mesons in collisions of proton or
deuteron beam with hydrogen or deuterium target. These measurements have been
performed in the vicinity of the kinematical threshold for meson production
where only a few partial waves in both initial and final state are expected to
contribute to the production process. This simplifies significantly the
interpretation of the data, yet still appears to be challenging due to the
three or four particle final state systems with a complex hadronic potential.
We review experiments and phenomenology of the near threshold production of the
ground-state mesons in the few-body final states as for example: nucleus-meson
and nucleon-nucleon-meson, and report on the status of the search of the
mesic-nuclei (a meson-nucleus bound states). Experimental advantages of
measurements close to the kinematical threshold are discussed, and general
features of the production mechanism of the eta and eta prime mesons in the
nucleon-nucleon collisions are presented emphasising results of measurements of
spin and izospin dependence of the production cross sections.
