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Sweet potato

The sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas) is a dicotyledonous plant that belongs to the bindweed or morning glory family, Convolvulaceae. Its large, starchy, sweet-tasting tuberous roots are used as a root vegetable. The young shoots and leaves are sometimes eaten as greens. Cultivars of the sweet potato have been bred to bear tubers with flesh and skin of various colors. Sweet potato is only distantly related to the common potato (Solanum tuberosum), both being in the order Solanales. Although darker sweet potatoes are often referred to as "yams" in parts of North America, the species is even more distant from the true yams, which are monocots in the order Dioscoreales.

The sweet potato is native to the tropical regions of South America in what is present-day Ecuador. Of the approximately 50 genera and more than 1,000 species of Convolvulaceae, I. batatas is the only crop plant of major importance—some others are used locally (e.g., I. aquatica "kangkong" as a green vegetable), but many are poisonous. The genus Ipomoea that contains the sweet potato also includes several garden flowers called morning glories, but that term is not usually extended to I. batatas. Some cultivars of I. batatas are grown as ornamental plants under the name tuberous morning glory, and used in a horticultural context. Sweet potatoes can also be called yams in North America. When soft varieties were first grown commercially there, there was a need to differentiate between the two. Enslaved Africans had already been calling the 'soft' sweet potatoes 'yams' because they resembled the unrelated yams in Africa. Thus, 'soft' sweet potatoes were referred to as 'yams' to distinguish them from the 'firm' varieties.

Description
The plant is a herbaceous perennial vine, bearing alternate triangle-shaped or palmately lobed leaves and medium-sized sympetalous flowers. The stems are usually crawling on the ground and form adventitious roots at the nodes. The leaves are screwed along the stems. The leaf stalk is 5 to 20 in long. The leaf blades are very variable, 5 to 13 cm long, the shape is heart-, kidney- to egg-shaped, rounded or triangular and spear-shaped, the edge can be entire, toothed or often three to seven times lobed, cut or divided. Most of the leaf surfaces are bare, rarely hairy, and the tip is rounded to pointed. The leaves are mostly green in color, but the accumulation of anthocyanins, especially along the leaf veins, can make them purple. Depending on the variety, the total length of a stem can be between 0.5 and 4 m. Some cultivars also form shoots up to 16 m in length. However, these do not form underground storage organs.

The hermaphrodite, five-fold and short-stalked flowers are single or few in stalked, zymous inflorescences that arise from the leaf axils and stand upright. It produces flowers when the day is short. The small sepals are elongated and tapering to a point and spiky and (rarely only 7) 10 to 15 mm long, usually finely haired or ciliate. The inner three are a little longer. The 4 to 7 cm long, overgrown and funnel-shaped, folded crown, with a shorter hem, can be lavender to purple-lavender in color, the throat is usually darker in color, but white crowns can also appear. The enclosed stamens are of unequal length with glandular filaments. The two-chamber ovary is upper constant with a relatively short stylus. Seeds are only produced from cross-pollination.

The flowers open before sunrise and stay open for a few hours. They close again in the morning and begin to wither. The edible tuberous root is long and tapered, with a smooth skin whose color ranges between yellow, orange, red, brown, purple, and beige. Its flesh ranges from beige through white, red, pink, violet, yellow, orange, and purple. Sweet potato cultivars with white or pale yellow flesh are less sweet and moist than those with red, pink or orange flesh.

Taxonomy
The sweet potato originates in South America in what is present-day Ecuador. The domestication of sweet potato occurred in either Central or South America. In Central America, domesticated sweet potatoes were present at least 5,000 years ago, with the origin of I. batatas possibly between the Yucatán Peninsula of Mexico and the mouth of the Orinoco River in Venezuela. The cultigen was most likely spread by local people to the Caribbean and South America by 2500 BCE.

I. trifida, a diploid, is the closest wild relative of the sweet potato, which originated with an initial cross between a tetraploid and another diploid parent, followed by a second complete genome duplication event. The oldest radiocarbon dating remains of the sweet potato known today were discovered in caves from the Chilca Canyon, in the south-central zone of Peru, and yield an age of 8080 ± 170 BC.

Transgenicity
The genome of cultivated sweet potatoes contains sequences of DNA from Agrobacterium (sensu lato; specifically, one related to Rhizobium rhizogenes), with genes actively expressed by the plants. The T-DNA transgenes were not observed in closely related wild relatives of the sweet potato. Studies indicated that the sweet potato genome evolved over millennia, with eventual domestication of the crop taking advantage of natural genetic modifications. These observations make sweet potatoes the first known example of a naturally transgenic food crop.

Dispersal history

Before the arrival of Europeans to the Americas, sweet potato was grown in Polynesia, generally spread by vine cuttings rather than by seeds. Sweet potato has been radiocarbon-dated in the Cook Islands to 1210–1400 CE. A common hypothesis is that a vine cutting was brought to central Polynesia by Polynesians who had traveled to South America and back, and spread from there across Polynesia to Easter Island, Hawaii and New Zealand. Genetic similarities have been found between Polynesian peoples and indigenous Americans including the Zenú, a people inhabiting the Pacific coast of present-day Colombia, indicating that Polynesians could have visited South America and taken sweet potatoes prior to European contact. Dutch linguists and specialists in Amerindian languages Willem Adelaar and Pieter Muysken have suggested that the word for sweet potato is shared by Polynesian languages and languages of South America: Proto-Polynesian *kumala (compare Rapa Nui kumara, Hawaiian uala, Māori kūmara) may be connected with Quechua and Aymara k'umar ~ k'umara. Adelaar and Muysken assert that the similarity in the word for sweet potato is proof of either incidental contact or sporadic contact between the Central Andes and Polynesia.

Some researchers, citing divergence time estimates, suggest that sweet potatoes might have been present in Polynesia thousands of years before humans arrived there. However, the present scholarly consensus favours the pre-Columbian contact model.

The sweet potato arrived in Europe with the Columbian exchange. It is recorded, for example, in Elinor Fettiplace's Receipt Book, compiled in England in 1604.

Sweet potatoes were first introduced to the Philippines during the Spanish colonial period (1521–1898) via the Manila galleons, along with other New World crops. It was introduced to the Fujian province of China in about 1594 from Luzon, in response to a major crop failure. The growing of sweet potatoes was encouraged by the Governor Chin Hsüeh-tseng (Jin Xuezeng).

Sweet potatoes were also introduced to the Ryukyu Kingdom, present-day Okinawa, Japan, in the early 1600s by the Portuguese. Sweet potatoes became a staple in Japan because they were important in preventing famine when rice harvests were poor. Aoki Konyō helped popularize the cultivation of the sweet potato in Japan, and the Tokugawa bakufu sponsored, published, and disseminated a vernacular Japanese translation of his research monograph on sweet potatoes to encourage their growth more broadly. Sweet potatoes were planted in Shōgun Tokugawa Yoshimune's private garden. It was first introduced to Korea in 1764. Kang P'il-ri and Yi Kwang-ryŏ embarked on a project to grow sweet potatoes in Seoul in 1766, using the knowledge of Japanese cultivators they learned in Tongnae starting in 1764. The project succeeded for a year but ultimately failed in winter 1767 after Kang's unexpected death.

Names
Although the soft, orange sweet potato is often called a "yam" in parts of North America, the sweet potato is very distinct from the botanical yam (Dioscorea), which has a cosmopolitan distribution, and belongs to the monocot family Dioscoreaceae. A different crop plant, the oca (Oxalis tuberosa, a species of wood sorrel), is called a "yam" in many parts of the world.

Although the sweet potato is not closely related botanically to the common potato, they have a shared etymology. The first Europeans to taste sweet potatoes were members of Christopher Columbus's expedition in 1492. Later explorers found many cultivars under an assortment of local names, but the name which stayed was the indigenous Taíno name of batata. The Spanish combined this with the Quechua word for potato, papa, to create the word patata for the common potato.

Though the sweet potato is also called batata in Hebrew, this is not a direct loan of the Taíno word. Rather, the Spanish patata was loaned into Arabic as batata, owing to the lack of a sound in Arabic, while the sweet potato was called batata ḥilwa ; literally ('sweet potato'). The Arabic batata was loaned into Hebrew as designating the sweet potato only, as Hebrew had its own word for the common potato, (tapuakh adama, literally 'earth apple'; compare French pomme de terre).

Some organizations and researchers advocate for the styling of the name as one word—sweetpotato—instead of two, to emphasize the plant's genetic uniqueness from both common potatoes and yams and to avoid confusion of it being classified as a type of common potato. In its current usage in American English, the styling of the name as two words is still preferred.

In Argentina, Colombia, Venezuela, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic, the sweet potato is called batata. In Brazil, the sweet potato is called batata doce. In Mexico, Bolivia, Peru, Chile, Central America, and the Philippines, the sweet potato is known as camote (alternatively spelled kamote in the Philippines), derived from the Nahuatl word camotli. In Peru and Bolivia, the general word in Quechua for the sweet potato is apichu, but there are variants used such as khumara, kumar (Ayacucho Quechua), and kumara (Bolivian Quechua), strikingly similar to the Polynesian name kumara and its regional Oceanic cognates (kumala, umala, ʻuala, etc. ), which has led some scholars to suspect an instance of pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact. This theory is also supported by genetic evidence.

In Australia, about 90% of production is devoted to the orange cultivar 'Beauregard', which was originally developed by the Louisiana Agricultural Experiment Station in 1981.

In New Zealand, the Māori varieties bore elongated tubers with white skin and a whitish flesh, which points to pre-European cross-Pacific travel. Known as kumara (from the Māori language kūmara), the most common cultivar now is the red 'Owairaka', but orange ('Beauregard'), gold, purple and other cultivars are also grown.

Habitat
The plant does not tolerate frost. It grows best at an average temperature of 24 °C, with abundant sunshine and warm nights. Annual rainfalls of 750 - 1000 mm are considered most suitable, with a minimum of 500 mm in the growing season. The crop is sensitive to drought at the tuber initiation stage 50–60 days after planting, and it is not tolerant to waterlogging, which may cause tuber rots and reduce the growth of storage roots if aeration is poor.

Depending on the cultivar and conditions, tuberous roots mature in two to nine months. With care, early-maturing cultivars can be grown as an annual summer crop in temperate areas, such as the Eastern United States and China. Sweet potatoes rarely flower when the daylight is longer than 11 hours, as is normal outside of the tropics. They are mostly propagated by stem or root cuttings or by adventitious shoots called "slips" that grow out from the tuberous roots during storage. True seeds are used for breeding only.

They grow well in many farming conditions and have few natural enemies; pesticides are rarely needed. Sweet potatoes are grown on a variety of soils, but well-drained, light- and medium-textured soils with a pH range of 4.5–7.0 are more favorable for the plant. They can be grown in poor soils with little fertilizer. However, sweet potatoes are very sensitive to aluminum toxicity and will die about six weeks after planting if lime is not applied at planting in this type of soil. Because they are sown by vine cuttings rather than seeds, sweet potatoes are relatively easy to plant. Because the rapidly growing vines shade out weeds, little weeding is needed. A commonly used herbicide to rid the soil of any unwelcome plants that may interfere with growth is DCPA, also known as Dacthal. In the tropics, the crop can be maintained in the ground and harvested as needed for market or home consumption. In temperate regions, sweet potatoes are most often grown on larger farms and are harvested before first frosts.

Sweet potatoes are cultivated throughout tropical and warm temperate regions wherever there is sufficient water to support their growth. Sweet potatoes became common as a food crop in the islands of the Pacific Ocean, South India, Uganda and other African countries.

A cultivar of the sweet potato called the boniato is grown in the Caribbean; its flesh is cream-colored, unlike the more common orange hue seen in other cultivars. Boniatos are not as sweet and moist as other sweet potatoes, but their consistency and delicate flavor are different from the common orange-colored sweet potato.

Sweet potatoes have been a part of the diet in the U.S. for most of its history, especially in the Southeast. The average per capita consumption of sweet potatoes in the United States is only about 1.5 - 2 kg per year, down from 13 kg in 1920. "Orange sweet potatoes (the most common type encountered in the US) received higher appearance liking scores compared with yellow or purple cultivars." Purple and yellow sweet potatoes were not as well liked by consumers compared to orange sweet potatoes "possibly because of the familiarity of orange color that is associated with sweet potatoes."

In the Southeastern U.S., sweet potatoes are traditionally cured to improve storage, flavor, and nutrition, and to allow wounds on the periderm of the harvested root to heal. Proper curing requires drying the freshly dug roots on the ground for two to three hours, then storage at 85 - 90 °F with 90 to 95% relative humidity from five to fourteen days. Cured sweet potatoes can keep for thirteen months when stored at 55 - 59 °F with >90% relative humidity. Colder temperatures injure the roots.

Production
In 2020, global production of sweet potatoes was 89 million tonnes, led by China with 55% of the world total (table). Secondary producers were Malawi, Tanzania, and Nigeria.

Diseases
Sweet potato suffers from Sweet potato chlorotic stunt virus (a Crinivirus). In synergy with other any of a large number of other viruses, Untiveros et al., 2007 finds SPCSV produces an even more severe symptomology. I. batatas suffers from several Phytophthoras including P. carotovorum, P. odoriferum, and P. wasabiae.

Nutrition
Cooked sweet potato (baked in skin) is 76% water, 21% carbohydrates, 2% protein, and contains negligible fat (table). In a 100 gram reference amount, baked sweet potato provides 90 calories, and rich contents (20% or more of the Daily Value, DV) of vitamin A (120% DV), vitamin C (24% DV), manganese (24% DV), and vitamin B6 (20% DV). It is a moderate source (10-19% DV) of some B vitamins and potassium.

Sweet potato cultivars with dark orange flesh have more beta-carotene (converted to a higher vitamin A content once digested) than those with light-colored flesh, and their increased cultivation is being encouraged in Africa where vitamin A deficiency is a serious health problem. Sweet potato leaves are edible and can be prepared like spinach or turnip greens.

Comparison to other food staples
The table below presents the relative performance of sweet potato (in column) to other staple foods on a dry weight basis to account for their different water contents. While sweet potato provides less edible energy and protein per unit weight than cereals, it has higher nutrient density than cereals.

According to a study by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, sweet potatoes are the most efficient staple food to grow in terms of farmland, yielding approximately 70,000 /ha / day.

Culinary
The starchy tuberous roots of the sweet potato are by far the most important product of the plant. In some tropical areas, the tubers are a staple food crop. The tuber is often cooked before consumption as this increases its nutrition and digestibility, although the American colonists in the Southeast ate raw sweet potatoes as a staple food.

The vines' tips and young leaves are edible as a green vegetable with a characteristic flavor. Older growths may be used as animal fodder.

Africa
Amukeke (sun-dried slices of root) and inginyo (sun-dried crushed root) are a staple food for people in northeastern Uganda. Amukeke is mainly served for breakfast, eaten with peanut sauce. Inginyo is mixed with cassava flour and tamarind to make atapa. People eat atapa with smoked fish cooked in peanut sauce or with dried cowpea leaves cooked in peanut sauce. Emukaru (earth-baked root) is eaten as a snack anytime and is mostly served with tea or with peanut sauce. Similar uses are also found in South Sudan.

The young leaves and vine tips of sweet potato leaves are widely consumed as a vegetable in West African countries (Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia, for example), as well as in northeastern Uganda, East Africa. According to FAO leaflet No. 13 - 1990, sweet potato leaves and shoots are a good source of vitamins A, C, and B2 (riboflavin), and according to research done by A. Khachatryan, are an excellent source of lutein.

In Kenya, Rhoda Nungo of the home economics department of the Ministry of Agriculture has written a guide to using sweet potatoes in modern recipes. This includes uses both in the mashed form and as flour from the dried tubers to replace part of the wheat flour and sugar in baked products such as cakes, chapatis, mandazis, bread, buns and cookies. A nutritious juice drink is made from the orange-fleshed cultivars, and deep-fried snacks are also included.

In Egypt, sweet potato tubers are known as batata and are a common street food in winter, when street vendors with carts fitted with ovens sell them to people passing time by the Nile or the sea. The cultivars used are an orange-fleshed one as well as a white/cream-fleshed one. They are also baked at home as a snack or dessert, drenched with honey.

In Ethiopia, the commonly found cultivars are black-skinned, cream-fleshed and called bitatis or mitatis. They are cultivated in the eastern and southern lower highlands and harvested during the rainy season (June/July). In recent years, better yielding orange-fleshed cultivars were released for cultivation by Haramaya University as a less sugary sweet potato with higher vitamin A content. Sweet potatoes are widely eaten boiled as a favored snack.

In South Africa, sweet potatoes are often eaten as a side dish such as soetpatats.

Asia
In East Asia, roasted sweet potatoes are popular street food. In China, sweet potatoes, typically yellow cultivars, are baked in a large iron drum and sold as street food during winter. In Korea, sweet potatoes, known as goguma, are roasted in a drum can, baked in foil or on an open fire, typically during winter. In Japan, a dish similar to the Korean preparation is called yaki-imo (roasted sweet potato), which typically uses either the yellow-fleshed "Japanese sweet potato" or the purple-fleshed "Okinawan sweet potato", which is known as beni-imo.

Sweet potato soup, served during winter, consists of boiling sweet potato in water with rock sugar and ginger. In Fujian cuisine and Taiwanese cuisine, sweet potato is often cooked with rice to make congee. Steamed and dried sweet potato is a delicacy from Liancheng County. Sweet potato greens are a common side dish in Taiwanese cuisine, often boiled or sautéed and served with a garlic and soy sauce mixture, or simply salted before serving. They, as well as dishes featuring the sweet potato root, are commonly found at bento restaurants. In northeastern Chinese cuisine, sweet potatoes are often cut into chunks and fried, before being drenched into a pan of boiling syrup.

In some regions of India, sweet potato is roasted slowly over kitchen coals at night and eaten with some dressing, while the easier way in the south is simply boiling or pressure cooking before peeling, cubing and seasoning for a vegetable dish as part of the meal. In the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, it is known as sakkara valli kilangu. It is boiled and consumed as evening snack. In some parts of India, fresh sweet potato is chipped, dried and then ground into flour; this is then mixed with wheat flour and baked into chapatti (bread). Between 15 and 20 percent of the sweet potato harvest is converted by some Indian communities into pickles and snack chips. A part of the tuber harvest is used in India as cattle fodder.

In Pakistan, sweet potato is known as shakarqandi and is cooked as a vegetable dish and also with meat dishes (chicken, mutton or beef). The ash-roasted sweet potatoes are sold as a snack and street food in Pakistani bazaars especially during the winter months.

In Sri Lanka, it is called bathala, and tubers are used mainly for breakfast (boiled sweet potato is commonly served with sambal or grated coconut) or as a supplementary curry dish for rice.

The tubers of this plant, known as kattala in Dhivehi, have been used in the traditional diet of the Maldives. The leaves were finely chopped and used in dishes such as mas huni.

In Japan, both sweet potatoes (called satsuma-imo) and true purple yams (called daijo or beni-imo) are grown. Boiling, roasting and steaming are the most common cooking methods. Also, the use in vegetable tempura is common. Daigaku-imo (ja:大学芋) is a baked and caramel-syruped sweet potato dessert. Because it is sweet and starchy, it is used in imo-kinton and some other traditional sweets, such as ofukuimo. What is commonly called "sweet potato" (ja:スイートポテト) in Japan is a cake made by baking mashed sweet potatoes. Shōchū, a Japanese spirit normally made from the fermentation of rice, can also be made from sweet potato, in which case it is called imo-jōchū. Imo-gohan, sweet potato cooked with rice, is popular in Guangdong, Taiwan and Japan. It is also served in nimono or nitsuke, boiled and typically flavored with soy sauce, mirin and dashi.

In Korean cuisine, sweet potato starch is used to produce dangmyeon (cellophane noodles). Sweet potatoes are also boiled, steamed, or roasted, and young stems are eaten as namul. Pizza restaurants such as Pizza Hut and Domino's in Korea are using sweet potatoes as a popular topping. Sweet potatoes are also used in the distillation of a variety of Soju. A popular Korean side dish or snack, goguma-mattang, also known as Korean candied sweet potato, is made by deep-frying sweet potatoes that were cut into big chunks and coating them with caramelized sugar.

In Malaysia and Singapore, sweet potato is often cut into small cubes and cooked with taro and coconut milk (santan) to make a sweet dessert called bubur cha cha. A favorite way of cooking sweet potato is deep-frying slices of sweet potato in batter, served as a tea-time snack. In homes, sweet potatoes are usually boiled. The leaves of sweet potatoes are usually stir-fried with only garlic or with sambal belacan and dried shrimp by Malaysians.

In the Philippines, sweet potatoes (locally known as camote or kamote) are an important food crop in rural areas. They are often a staple among impoverished families in provinces, as they are easier to cultivate and cost less than rice. The tubers are boiled or baked in coals and may be dipped in sugar or syrup. Young leaves and shoots (locally known as talbos ng kamote or camote tops) are eaten fresh in salads with shrimp paste (bagoong alamang) or fish sauce. They can be cooked in vinegar and soy sauce and served with fried fish (a dish known as adobong talbos ng kamote), or with recipes such as sinigang. The stew obtained from boiling camote tops is purple-colored, and is often mixed with lemon as juice. Sweet potatoes are also sold as street food in suburban and rural areas. Fried sweet potatoes coated with caramelized sugar and served in skewers (camote cue) or as French fries are popular afternoon snacks. Sweet potatoes are also used in a variant of halo-halo called ginatan, where they are cooked in coconut milk and sugar and mixed with a variety of rootcrops, sago, jackfruit, and bilu-bilo (glutinous rice balls). Bread made from sweet potato flour is also gaining popularity. Sweet potato is relatively easy to propagate, and in rural areas can be seen abundantly at canals and dikes. The uncultivated plant is usually fed to pigs.

In Indonesia, sweet potatoes are locally known as ubi jalar (lit: "spreading tuber") or simply ubi and are frequently fried with batter and served as snacks with spicy condiments, along with other kinds of fritters such as fried bananas, tempeh, tahu, breadfruit, or cassava. In the mountainous regions of West Papua, sweet potatoes are the staple food among the natives there. Using the bakar batu method of cooking, rocks that have been burned in a nearby bonfire are thrown into a pit lined with leaves. Layers of sweet potatoes, an assortment of vegetables, and pork are piled on top of the rocks. The top of the pile then is insulated with more leaves, creating a pressure of heat and steam inside which cooks all food within the pile after several hours.

In Vietnamese cuisine sweet potatoes are known as khoai lang and they are commonly cooked with a sweetener such as corn syrup, honey, sugar, or molasses.

Young sweet potato leaves are also used as baby food, particularly in Southeast Asia and East Asia. Mashed sweet potato tubers are used similarly throughout the world.

United States

Candied sweet potatoes are a side dish consisting mainly of sweet potatoes prepared with brown sugar, marshmallows, maple syrup, molasses, orange juice, marron glacé, or other sweet ingredients. It is often served in the US on Thanksgiving. Sweet potato casserole is a side dish of mashed sweet potatoes in a casserole dish, topped with a brown sugar and pecan topping.

The sweet potato became a favorite food item of the French and Spanish settlers, thus beginning a long history of cultivation in Louisiana. Sweet potatoes are recognized as the state vegetable of Alabama, Louisiana, and North Carolina. Sweet potato pie is also a traditional favorite dish in Southern U.S. cuisine. Another variation on the typical sweet potato pie is the Okinawan sweet potato haupia pie, which is made with purple sweet potatoes.

The fried sweet potatoes tradition dates to the early nineteenth century in the United States. Sweet potato fries or chips are a common preparation and are made by julienning and deep-frying sweet potatoes in the fashion of French fried potatoes. Roasting sliced or chopped sweet potatoes lightly coated in animal or vegetable oil at high heat became common in the United States at the start of the 21st century, a dish called "sweet potato fries". Sweet potato mash is served as a side dish, often at Thanksgiving dinner or with barbecue.

John Buttencourt Avila is called the "father of the sweet potato industry" in North America.

Oceania
Māori grew several varieties of small, yellow-skinned, finger-sized kūmara (with names including taputini, taroamahoe, pehu, hutihuti, and rekamaroa ) that they had brought with them from east Polynesia. Modern trials have shown that these smaller varieties were capable of producing well, but when American whalers, sealers and trading vessels introduced larger cultivars in the early 19th century, they quickly predominated.

Prior to 2021, archaeologists believed that the sweet potato failed to flourish in New Zealand south of Christchurch due to the colder climate, forcing Māori in those latitudes to become (along with the Moriori of the Chatham Islands) the only Polynesian people who subsisted solely on hunting and gathering. However, a 2021 analysis of material excavated from a site near Dunedin, some 250 km further south, revealed that sweet potatoes were grown and stored there during the 15th century, before the industry was disrupted by factors speculated to be due to the Little Ice Age.

Māori traditionally cooked kūmara in a hāngī (earth oven). This is still a common practice when there are large gatherings on marae.

In 1947, black rot (Ceratocystis fimbriata) appeared in kūmara around Auckland and increased in severity through the 1950s. A disease-free strain was developed by Joe and Fay Gock. They gave the strain to the nation, earning them the Bledisloe Cup in 2013.

There are three main cultivars of kūmara sold in New Zealand: 'Owairaka Red' ("red"), 'Toka Toka Gold' ("gold"), and 'Beauregard' ("orange"). The country grows around 24,000 metric tons of kūmara annually, with nearly all of it (97%) grown in the Northland region. Kūmara are widely available throughout New Zealand year-round, where they are a popular alternative to potatoes.

Kūmara are often included in roast meals, and served with sour cream and sweet chili sauce. They are served alongside such vegetables as potatoes and pumpkin and as such, are generally prepared in a savory manner. They are ubiquitous in supermarkets, roast meal takeaway shops and hāngī.

Among the Urapmin people of Papua New Guinea, taro (known in Urap as ima) and the sweet potato (Urap: wan) are the main sources of sustenance, and in fact the word for 'food' in Urap is a compound of these two words.

Europe
In the Veneto (northeast Italy), sweet potato is known as patata mericana in the Venetian language (patata americana in Italian, meaning "American potato"), and it is cultivated above all in the southern area of the region; it is a traditional fall dish, boiled or roasted.

In Spain, sweet potato is called boniato. On the evening of All Souls' Day, in Catalonia (northeastern Spain) it is traditional to serve roasted sweet potato and chestnuts, panellets and sweet wine. The occasion is called La Castanyada. Sweet potato is also used to make cakes or to eat roasted through the whole country.

South America
In Peru, sweet potatoes are called camote and are frequently served alongside ceviche. Sweet potato chips are also a commonly sold snack, be it on the street or in packaged foods.

Dulce de batata is a traditional Argentine, Paraguayan and Uruguayan dessert, which is made of sweet potatoes. It is a sweet jelly, which resembles a marmalade because of its color and sweetness but it has a harder texture, and has to be sliced in thin portions with a knife as if it was a pie.

Globally
Globally, sweet potatoes are now a staple ingredient of modern sushi cuisine, specifically used in maki rolls. The advent of sweet potato as a sushi ingredient is credited to chef Bun Lai of Miya's Sushi, who first introduced sweet potato rolls in the 1990s as a plant-based alternative to traditional fish-based sushi rolls.

Molecular gastronomy
Freezing a sweet potato until solid, baking at a low temperature, then increasing to a high temperature brings out the sweetness by caramelizing converted sugars.

Ceramics

Ceramics modeled after sweet potatoes or camotes are often found in the Moche culture.

Dyes
In South America, the juice of red sweet potatoes is combined with lime juice to make a dye for cloth. By varying the proportions of the juices, every shade from pink to black can be obtained. Purple sweet potato color is also used as a natural food coloring.

Aquariums
Cuttings of sweet potato vine, either edible or ornamental cultivars, will rapidly form roots in water and will grow in it, indefinitely, in good lighting with a steady supply of nutrients. For this reason, sweet potato vine is ideal for use in home aquariums, trailing out of the water with its roots submerged, as its rapid growth is fueled by toxic ammonia and nitrates, a waste product of aquatic life, which it removes from the water. This improves the living conditions for fish, which also find refuge in the extensive root systems.

Ornamentals
Ornamental sweet potatoes are popular landscape, container, and bedding plants. Grown as an annual in zones up to USDA hardiness Zone 9, they grow rapidly and spread quickly. Cultivars are available in many colors, such as green, yellow, and purple. Some ornamental varieties, like 'Blackie', flower more than others. These ornamental cultivars are not poisonous, and although the leaves are edible, the tubers do not have a good taste.

title: Sweet potato


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Pulse-amplitude modulation

Pulse-amplitude modulation (PAM) is a form of signal modulation where the message information is encoded in the amplitude of a series of signal pulses. It is an analog pulse modulation scheme in which the amplitudes of a train of carrier pulses are varied according to the sample value of the message signal. Demodulation is performed by detecting the amplitude level of the carrier at every single period.

Types
There are two types of pulse amplitude modulation:
 * In single polarity PAM, a suitable fixed DC bias is added to the signal to ensure that all the pulses are positive.
 * In double polarity PAM, the pulses are both positive and negative.

Pulse-amplitude modulation is widely used in modulating signal transmission of digital data, with non-baseband applications having been largely replaced by pulse-code modulation, and, more recently, by pulse-position modulation.

The number of possible pulse amplitudes in analog PAM is theoretically infinite. Digital PAM reduces the number of pulse amplitudes to some power of two. For example, in 4-level PAM there are $$2^2$$ possible discrete pulse amplitudes; in 8-level PAM there are $$2^3$$ possible discrete pulse amplitudes; and in 16-level PAM there are $$2^4$$ possible discrete pulse amplitudes.

Ethernet
Some versions of the Ethernet communication standard are an example of PAM usage. In particular, 100BASE-T4 and BroadR-Reach Ethernet standard use three-level PAM modulation (PAM-3), while 1000BASE-T Gigabit Ethernet uses five-level PAM-5 modulation and 10GBASE-T 10 Gigabit Ethernet uses a Tomlinson-Harashima precoded (THP) version of pulse-amplitude modulation with 16 discrete levels (PAM-16), encoded in a two-dimensional checkerboard pattern known as DSQ128. 25 Gigabit Ethernet and some copper variants of 100 Gigabit Ethernet and 200 Gigabit Ethernet use PAM-4 modulation.

USB
USB4 Version 2.0 uses PAM-3 signaling for USB4 80 Gbps (USB4 Gen 4×2) and USB4 120 Gbps (USB4 Gen 4 Asymmetric) transmitting 3 bits per 2 clock cycles. Thunderbolt 5 uses the same PHY.

GDDR6X
GDDR6X, developed by Micron and Nvidia and first used in the Nvidia RTX 3080 and 3090 graphics cards, uses PAM-4 signaling to transmit 2 bits per clock cycle without having to resort to higher frequencies or two channels or lanes with associated transmitters and receivers, which may increase power or space consumption and cost. Higher frequencies require higher bandwidth, which is a significant problem beyond 28 GHz when trying to transmit through copper. PAM-4 costs more to implement than earlier NRZ (non return to zero, PAM-2) coding partly because it requires more space in integrated circuits, and is more susceptible to SNR (signal to noise ratio) problems.

GDDR7
GDDR7 will utilize PAM-3 signaling to achieve speeds of 36 Gbps/pin. The higher data transmission rate per cycle compared to NRZ/PAM-2-signaling used by GDDR6 and prior generations improves power efficiency and signal integrity.

PCI Express
PCI Express 6.0 has introduced PAM-4 usage.

Photo biology
The concept is also used for the study of photosynthesis using a specialized instrument that involves a spectrofluorometric measurement of the kinetics of fluorescence rise and decay in the light-harvesting antenna of thylakoid membranes, thus querying various aspects of the state of the photosystems under different environmental conditions. Unlike the traditional dark-adapted chlorophyll fluorescence measurements, pulse amplitude fluorescence devices allow measuring under ambient light conditions, which made measurements significantly more versatile.

Electronic drivers for LED lighting
Pulse-amplitude modulation has also been developed for the control of light-emitting diodes (LEDs), especially for lighting applications. LED drivers based on the PAM technique offer improved energy efficiency over systems based upon other common driver modulation techniques such as pulse-width modulation (PWM) as the forward current passing through an LED is relative to the intensity of the light output and the LED efficiency increases as the forward current is reduced.

Pulse-amplitude modulation LED drivers are able to synchronize pulses across multiple LED channels to enable perfect color matching. Due to the inherent nature of PAM in conjunction with the rapid switching speed of LEDs, it is possible to use LED lighting as a means of wireless data transmission at high speed.

Digital television
The North American Advanced Television Systems Committee standards for digital television uses a form of PAM to broadcast the data that makes up the television signal. This system, known as 8VSB, is based on an eight-level PAM. It uses additional processing to suppress one sideband and thus make more efficient use of limited bandwidth. Using a single 6 MHz channel allocation, as defined in the previous NTSC analog standard, 8VSB is capable of transmitting 32 Mbit/s. After accounting for error-correcting codes and other overhead, the data rate in the signal is 19.39 Mbit/s.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Pulse-amplitude modulation


text:
Flora (disambiguation)

Flora is plant life collectively.

Flora may also refer to:

Microbiology

 * Flora (microbiology), collective bacteria and other microorganisms in a host
 * Flora or microbiota, the collective bacteria and other microorganisms in an animal host

People and fictional characters

 * Flora (given name), including a list of people and fictional characters with the name
 * Flora (surname), a list of people with the name

Norway

 * Flora, Norway, a municipality in Sunnfjord
 * Flora, Trøndelag, a village in Selbu municipality in Trøndelag county

United States

 * Flora Lake, California
 * Flora, Florida, a former community
 * Flora, Illinois, a city
 * Flora Township, Boone County, Illinois
 * Flora, Indiana, a town
 * Flora, Miami County, Indiana, an unincorporated community
 * Flora Township, Dickinson County, Kansas
 * Flora, Louisiana, an unincorporated community
 * Flora Township, Renville County, Minnesota
 * Flora, Mississippi, a town
 * Flora, Ohio, a ghost town
 * Flora, Oregon, an unincorporated community

Elsewhere

 * Mount Flora, Antarctic Peninsula
 * Flora, Apayao, a municipality in the Philippines
 * Flora, Suriname, a resort

Music

 * La Flora, a 1628 opera by Marco da Fagliano
 * Florakören, also called Flora, a Finnish choir
 * Flora (aka Lily of the West), an Irish folk song
 * "Flora", a song by Pinegrove from 11:11 (2022)

Paintings

 * Flora (Francesco Melzi)
 * Flora (De Morgan)
 * Flora (Rembrandt, Hermitage)
 * Flora (Titian)
 * Flora (Jan Massys)

Sculptures

 * Flora Fountain, South Mumbai, India
 * Flora (bust), a bust attributed to Leonardo da Vinci

Other arts and entertainment

 * Flora (film), a 2017 Canadian independent film
 * An elephant in the 2008 film Saving Flora (2018), performed by Tia
 * An elephant and the namesake of Circus Flora
 * Cure Flora, a character in Go! Princess PreCure

Other uses

 * Hurricane Flora, one of the deadliest hurricanes on record
 * Flora (mythology), a goddess in Roman mythology
 * HMS Flora, several British warships
 * Flora family, a large grouping of asteroids
 * 8 Flora, the largest asteroid in the family
 * Flora (Prague Metro), a metro station in Prague, Czech Republic
 * Flora station (Illinois), a historic rail depot in Flora, Illinois, United States
 * The Flora, a closed pub in London, England
 * Flora Chapel, a church in Selbu municipality in Trøndelag county, Norway
 * FC Flora, a football team in Tallinn, Estonia
 * Flora (publication), a printed or digital work that describes the plant species in a particular area or region
 * Flora (margarine), a brand of margarine
 * Flora (grape), a California wine grape

title: Flora (disambiguation)


text:
Puffball

Puffballs are a type of fungus featuring a ball-shaped fruit body that (when mature) bursts on contact or impact, releasing a cloud of dust-like spores into the surrounding area. Puffballs belong to the division Basidiomycota and encompass several genera, including Calvatia, Calbovista and Lycoperdon. The puffballs were previously treated as a taxonomic group called the Gasteromycetes or Gasteromycetidae, but they are now known to be a polyphyletic assemblage.

The distinguishing feature of all puffballs is that they do not have an open cap with spore-bearing gills. Instead, spores are produced internally, in a spheroidal fruit body called a gasterothecium (gasteroid 'stomach-like' basidiocarp). As the spores mature, they form a mass called a gleba in the centre of the fruitbody that is often of a distinctive color and texture. The basidiocarp remains closed until after the spores have been released from the basidia. Eventually, it develops an aperture, or dries, becomes brittle, and splits, and the spores escape. The spores of puffballs are statismospores rather than ballistospores, meaning they are not forcibly extruded from the basidium. Puffballs and similar forms are thought to have evolved convergently (that is, in numerous independent events) from Hymenomycetes by gasteromycetation, through secotioid stages. Thus, 'Gasteromycetes' and 'Gasteromycetidae' are now considered to be descriptive, morphological terms (more properly gasteroid or gasteromycetes, to avoid taxonomic implications) but not valid cladistic terms.

True puffballs do not have a visible stalk or stem, while stalked puffballs do have a stalk that supports the gleba. None of the stalked puffballs are edible as they are tough and woody mushrooms. The Hymenogastrales and Enteridium lycoperdon, a slime mold, are the false puffballs. A gleba which is powdery on maturity is a feature of true puffballs, stalked puffballs and earthstars. False puffballs are hard like rock or brittle. All false puffballs are inedible, as they are tough and bitter to taste. The genus Scleroderma, which has a young purple gleba, should also be avoided.

Puffballs were traditionally used in Tibet for making ink by burning them, grinding the ash, then putting them in water and adding glue liquid and "a decoction", which, when pressed for a long time, made a black dark substance that was used as ink. Rural Americans burned the common puffball with some kind of bee smoker to anesthetize honey bees as a means to safely procure honey; the practice later inspired experimental medicinal application of the puffball smoke as a surgical general anesthetic in 1853.

Edibility and identification

While most puffballs are not poisonous, some often look similar to young agarics, and especially the deadly Amanitas, such as the death cap or destroying angel mushrooms. Young puffballs in the edible stage, before maturation of the gleba, have undifferentiated white flesh within, whereas the gills of immature Amanita mushrooms can be seen if they are closely examined. They can be very toxic.

The giant puffball, Calvatia gigantea (earlier classified as Lycoperdon giganteum), reaches 1 ft or more in diameter, and is difficult to mistake for any other fungus. It has been estimated that, when mature, a large specimen of this fungus will produce around 7 × 10$12$ spores.

Not all true puffball mushrooms are without stalks. Some may also be stalked, such as the Podaxis pistillaris, which is also called the "false shaggy mane". There are also a number of false puffballs that look similar to the true ones.

Stalked puffballs
Stalked puffballs species:
 * Battarrea phalloides
 * Calostoma cinnabarina (Stalked Puffball-in-Aspic)
 * Pisolithus tinctorius
 * Tulostoma (genus)

True puffballs
True puffballs genera and species:
 * Bovista – various species, including:
 * Bovista aestivalis
 * Bovista dermoxantha
 * Bovista nigrescens
 * Bovista plumbea
 * Calvatia – various species, including:
 * Calvatia bovista
 * Calvatia craniiformis
 * Calvatia cyathiformis
 * Calvatia gigantea
 * Calvatia booniana
 * Calvatia fumosa
 * Calvatia lepidophora
 * Calvatia pachyderma
 * Calvatia sculpta
 * Calvatia subcretacea – edible
 * Calbovista subsculpta
 * Handkea – various species, including:
 * Handkea utriformis
 * Lycoperdon – various species, including:
 * Lycoperdon candidum
 * Lycoperdon echinatum
 * Lycoperdon fusillum
 * Lycoperdon umbrinum
 * Scleroderma – various species, including:
 * Scleroderma auratium
 * Scleroderma geaster – not edible

False puffballs
False puffballs species:
 * Endoptychum agaricoides
 * Nivatogastrium nubigenum
 * Podaxis pistillaris
 * Rhizopogon rubescens
 * Truncocolumella citrina

Classification

Major orders:
 * Agaricales (including now-obsolete orders Lycoperdales, Tulostomatales, and Nidulariales)
 * Basidiomycetes: Agaricales: Lycoperdaceae: Calvatia
 * Calvatia booniana
 * Calvatia bovista (Handkea utriformis)
 * Calvatia craniiformis
 * Calvatia cyathiformis
 * Calvatia fumosa (Handkea fumosa)
 * Calvatia gigantea
 * Calvatia lepidophora
 * Calvatia rubroflava
 * Calvatia sculpta
 * Calvatia subcretacea (Handkea subcretacea)
 * Basidiomycetes: Agaricales: Lycoperdaceae: Lycoperdon
 * Lycoperdon foetidum (Lycoperdon nigrescens)
 * Lycoperdon perlatum
 * Lycoperdon pulcherrimum
 * Lycoperdon pusillum
 * Lycoperdon pyriforme
 * Basidiomycetes: Agaricales: Lycoperdaceae: Vascellum
 * Vascellum curtisii
 * Vascellum pratense – edible when interior is white
 * Geastrales and Phallales (related to Cantharellales),
 * Basidiomycetes: Phallales: Geastraceae: Geastrum
 * Geastrum coronatum
 * Geastrum fornicatum
 * Geastrum saccatum
 * Sclerodermatales (related to Boletales)
 * Basidiomycetes: Boletales: Sclerodermataceae: Scleroderma
 * Scleroderma areolatum
 * Scleroderma bovista
 * Scleroderma cepa
 * Scleroderma citrinum
 * Scleroderma meridionale
 * Scleroderma michiganense
 * Scleroderma polyrhizum
 * Scleroderma septentrionale
 * Various false-truffles (hypogaeic gasteromycetes) related to different hymenomycete orders

Similarly, the true truffles (Tuberales) are gasteroid Ascomycota. Their ascocarps are called tuberothecia.

title: Puffball


text:
Mens rea

In criminal law, mens rea (Law Latin for "guilty mind" ) is the mental state of a defendant who is accused of committing a crime. In common law jurisdictions, most crimes require proof both of mens rea and actus reus ("guilty act") before the defendant can be found guilty.

Introduction
The standard common law test of criminal liability is expressed in the Latin phrase actus reus non facit reum nisi mens sit rea, i.e. "the act is not culpable unless the mind is guilty". As a general rule, someone who acted without mental fault is not liable in criminal law. Exceptions are known as strict liability crimes. Moreover, when a person intends a harm, but as a result of bad aim or other cause the intent is transferred from an intended victim to an unintended victim, the case is considered to be a matter of transferred intent.

The types of mental states that apply to crimes vary depending on whether a jurisdiction follows criminal law under the common law tradition or, within the United States, according to the Model Penal Code.

In civil law, it is usually not necessary to prove a subjective mental element to establish liability for breach of contract or tort, for example. But if a tort is intentionally committed or a contract is intentionally breached, such intent may increase the scope of liability and the damages payable to the plaintiff.

In some jurisdictions, the terms mens rea and actus reus have been replaced by alternative terminology.

Levels of mens rea within the United States
Under the tradition of common law, judges would often require a "bad state of mind" in addition to an action or omission (actus reus) to find a criminal guilty. Over time, culpable mental states (mens rea) became varied among different types of crimes. Such crimes and mental states might include, for example, "malice" for murder, "fraudulence" for fraud, "willfulness and corruption" for perjury, and so on. The crime of manslaughter, further, might not even require a "bad mind" but simply a "negligent" one. Regardless of how the requirements are categorized, the Supreme Court has explained mens rea requirements for crimes are "universal" and essential to "mature systems of law", even going so far as to say that this belief undergirds notions of free will and morality.

Within the United States, there is no single encompassing criminal law. Criminal laws are passed and enforced by the states‚ or the federal government, but each of these criminal "codes" vary and may or may not draw from the same theoretical sources.

State criminal law
The vast majority of criminal prosecutions in the United States are carried out by the several states in accordance with the laws of the state in question. Historically, the states (with the partial exception of civil-law Louisiana) applied common law rules of mens rea similar to those extant in England, but over time American understandings of common law mens rea terms diverged from those of English law and from each other. Concepts like "general intent" and "specific intent" dominated classifications of mental states in state common law,  but by the late 1950s to early 1960s, the common law of mens rea was widely acknowledged to be a slippery, vague, and confused mess. This was one of several factors that led to the development of the Model Penal Code. Nevertheless, states continue to use mental states beyond or besides those listed in the Model Penal Code.

Federal criminal law
Since the federal government of the United States does not have a generalized police power like that of the states, the scope of its criminal statutes is necessarily circumscribed. Ordinary prosecutions are the province of the states, and only crimes connected to the constitutional powers may be pursued by the federal government. Nevertheless, the Supreme Court holds that required mens rea is an essential element of federal criminal offenses. Consequently, Title 18 of the United States Code does not use the aforementioned culpability scheme but relies instead on more traditional definitions of crimes taken from common law. For example, malice aforethought is used as a requirement for committing capital murder, and the Supreme Court has applied mental states such as "willfully."

Model Penal Code
Because the landscape of criminal law varied from state to state, the American Law Institute (which issues "restatements" of American legal jurisprudence) declined to issue a restatement of criminal law in favor of a "model" code for states to issue new, standardized criminal law. This Model Penal Code ("MPC") was completed in 1962, and received praise from legal scholars for its reformulation of criminal law. Although not all states follow the criminal law as constructed within the MPC, over 34 states had adopted part or substantially all of the MPC as law by 1983. The federal government has not adopted the MPC, although it has attempted to do so for many decades.

Since its publication, the formulation of mens rea set forth in the Model Penal Code has been highly influential throughout the United States in clarifying the discussion of the different modes of culpability. The following levels of mens rea are found in the MPC §2.02(2), and are considered by the United States Supreme Court to be the four states of mind that give rise to criminal liability:

 * Negligently: a "reasonable person" ought to be aware of a "substantial and unjustifiable risk" that is a "gross deviation" from a normal standard of care.
 * Recklessly: the actor "consciously disregards a substantial and unjustifiable risk" in "gross deviation" from a normal standard of care.
 * Knowingly: the actor is "practically certain" that his conduct will lead to the result, or is aware to a high probability that his conduct is of a prohibited nature, or is aware to a high probability that the attendant circumstances exist.
 * Purposefully: the actor consciously engages in conduct and "desires" the result. The Supreme Court has not found a large difference between purposeful and knowing conduct, not only in theory but also in application.

The above mental states also work in a hierarchy, with negligence as the lowest mental state and purposefully as the highest: a finding of purposefully/intentional establishes a state of knowingness, recklessness, and negligence; a finding of knowingness establishes a finding of recklessness and negligence, and a finding of recklessness establishes a state of negligence. (5)

The MPC also recognizes culpability not because of a mental state, but for crimes that are legislatively proscribed due to the imposition of "absolute liability." Strict liability crimes will require evidence of such legislative intent, and courts seriously examine such evidence before assuming a crime permits strict liability rather than a mens rea.

 * Strict liability: the actor engaged in conduct and his mental state is irrelevant. This mens rea may only be applied where the forbidden conduct is a mere violation, i.e. a civil infraction.

Differences between common law crimes and MPC crimes
The elements constituting a crime vary between codes that draw on common law principles and those that draw from the Model Penal Code. For example, the mens rea required of murder in federal law under the United States Code is distinct from the mens rea of murder under the Texas Penal Code (which adopted the Model Penal Code in 1974 ): In the common law approach as under 18 U.S.C. §1111, the definition of murder includes an actus reus (the unlawful killing of a human being) and a common law mens rea: malice aforethought. Modern criminal law approaches the analysis somewhat differently. Using a framework from the American Law Institute's Model Penal Code, homicide is a "results" offense in that it forbids any "purposeful" or "knowing" conduct that causes, and therefore results in, the death of another human being. "Purposeful" in this sense means the actor possessed a conscious purpose or objective that the result (i.e. the death of another human being) be achieved. "Knowing" means that the actor was aware or practically certain that a death would result, but had no purpose or desire for it to occur. By contrast with traditional common law, the Model Penal Code specifically distinguishes purpose and knowledge to avoid confusion regarding "intent" elements. Many states still adhere to older terminology, relying on the terms "intentional" to cover both types of mens rea: "purposeful" and "knowing".

Limits and criticisms of MPC mens rea
Not all states have adopted the MPC, and for states that have, application of the Model Code varies. Despite its attempt to standardize criminal law, this variance has resulted in confusion and criticism. Some scholars have criticized the levels of culpability in the current Model Penal Code as insufficient or needing revision. Scholars' allegations include incoherency from conflicted philosophical commitments, or the federal governments' failure to explicitly adopt the Model Penal Code resulting in departure from common law precedents. Since the publication of the MPC, confusion has also occurred where norms towards crimes have also changed: especially regarding sexual crimes, hate crimes, drug crimes, and digital crimes. But while some scholarship argues that commitment to reforms gave way to "cynicism and fatigue," others argue the original commitment of the MPC to "imprisonment as a last result" should be preserved in potential revisions to the Code and criminal law.

Rather than dwell on philosophical or normative arguments, some scholars have looked to evidence-based arguments to update the Code. In an empirical study, participants were presented with scenarios and asked to rate how deserving of punishment the scenario was. The results showed that participants' judgments matched up with the hierarchy of mens rea in the MPC, but also found that participants struggled most with "recklessness" scenarios. As a result, the study suggests revising the language of the categories.

Modes of culpability outside the United States
The levels of mens rea and the distinction between them vary among jurisdictions. Although common law originated from England, the common law of each jurisdiction with regard to culpability varies as precedents and statutes vary.

England and Wales

 * Direct intention: the actor has a clear foresight of the consequences of his actions, and desires those consequences to occur. It is his aim or purpose to achieve this consequence.
 * Oblique intention: the result is a virtually certain consequence or a 'virtual certainty' of the defendant's actions, and that the defendant appreciates that such was the case.
 * Knowingly: the actor knows, or should know, that the results of his conduct are reasonably certain to occur.
 * Recklessness: the actor foresees that particular consequences may occur and proceeds with the given conduct, not caring whether those consequences actually occur or not.
 * Criminal negligence: the actor did not actually foresee that the particular consequences would flow from his actions, but a reasonable person, in the same circumstances, would have foreseen those consequences.

Scotland

 * Intention: the accused willingly committed a criminal act entirely aware of his actions and their consequences. Necessary for murder and for assault.
 * Recklessness: the accused was aware the criminal act could be potentially dangerous but did not give a second thought to its consequences, for example, involuntary culpable homicide.

Canada
The Supreme Court of Canada has found that the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees a minimum requirement for the mental state of various crimes. For example, the crime of murder must include a mental requirement of at least subjective foresight of death. For crimes where imprisonment is a sanction, there is a requirement of at least a defence of due diligence.

Australia
Mens rea is an element of the offence that the prosecution needs to assert beyond a reasonable doubt for the accused to be found fully liable of the offence, assuming the offence is one that requires an element of mens rea (see, He Kaw Teh v R - case from the Australian High Court regarding importance of establishment of the element of mens rea). Some offences exist whereby an act can be proven but there is lack of the necessary guilt of mind, such can be seen in instances where courts are unable to establish criminal intent due to persistent mental health or cognitive impairment (see, Mental Health and Cognitive Impairment (Forensic Provisions) Act (NSW) s 30). Mens rea can be established both through common law (see R v Morgan) or through statute law. Often in cases where the full guilty mind can not be established, statute law in Australia will provide an alternative sentencing option, such relationship can be seen in the Crimes Act 1900, s33 and 35, where s33(3) states s 35 as an alternate sentence for a finding of Grievous Bodily Harm in the event whereby the Jury is not satified that the accused held the necessary element of specific intent required for criminal liability under s 33. In such instances, s 35 being a charge of recklessness instead of intent, is prescribed.

India
Mens Rea in the Indian Penal Code 1860 sets out the definition of offences, the general conditions of liability, the conditions of exemptions from liability and punishments for the respective offences. Legislatures had not used the common law doctrine of mens rea in defining these crimes. However, they preferred to import it by using different terms indicating the required evil intent or mens rea as an essence of a particular offence.

Guilt in respect to almost all offences created under the IPC is fastened either on the ground of intention, knowledge or reason to believe. Almost all the offences under the IPC are qualified by one or other words such as 'wrongful gain or loss', 'dishonesty', 'fraudulently', 'reason to believe', 'criminal knowledge or intention', 'intentional cooperation', 'voluntarily', 'malignantly', 'wantonly', 'maliciously'. All these words indicate the blameworthy mental condition required at the time of commission of the offence, nowhere found in the IPC, its essence is reflected in almost all the provisions of the Indian Penal Code 1860. Every offence created under the IPC virtually imports the idea of criminal intent or mens rea in some form or other.

Islamic law
In Islamic law, intention (niyya) is a criterion for determining whether a criminal act is punishable or pardonable, or whether the penalty for such a crime is predetermined (ḥadd) or discretionary (taʿzīr). The offender cannot be found guilty until their intention in committing the crime has been taken into consideration.

Ignorance of law contrasted with mens rea
The general rule under common law and statutory law is that ignorance of the law or a mistake of law is no defense to criminal prosecution. However, in some cases, courts have held that if knowledge of a law, or if intent to break a law, is a material element of an offense, then a defendant may use good faith ignorance as a defense.

In the 1991 US Supreme Court opinion for Cheek v. United States, Byron White wrote: "The proliferation of statutes and regulations has sometimes made it difficult for the average citizen to know and comprehend the extent of the duties and obligations imposed by the tax laws. [...] Thus, the Court almost 60 years ago interpreted the statutory term 'willfully' as used in the federal criminal tax statutes as carving out an exception to the traditional rule. This special treatment of criminal tax offenses is largely due to the complexity of the tax laws."

Crimes like tax evasion are specific intent crimes and require intent to violate the law as an element of the offense. In R v. Klundert, for example, the Ontario Court of Appeal found as follows:

"[55] Section 239(1)(d) is part of an Act which is necessarily and notoriously complex. It is subject to ongoing revision. No lay person is expected to know all the complexities of the tax laws. It is accepted that people will act on the advice of professionals and that the advice will often turn on the meanings to be given to provisions in the Act that are open to various interpretations. Furthermore, it is accepted that one may legitimately structure one's affairs so as to minimize tax liability. Considered in this legislative context, I have no difficulty in holding that a mistake or ignorance as to one's liability to pay tax under the Act may negate the fault requirement in the provision, regardless of whether it is a factual mistake, a legal mistake, or a combination of both."

A good-faith belief that a law is unjust or unconstitutional is no excuse, but "reasonable reliance upon an official statement of law, afterward determined to be invalid or erroneous" does not constitute a criminal act.

In the United States, a law must be reasonably clear; it must be worded so that a reasonable layman can comprehend the specific prohibited acts. Otherwise, the law may be unconstitutional pursuant to the vagueness doctrine.

Subjective and objective tests
A hybrid test for the existence of mens rea is as follows: 1. subjective, where the court must be satisfied that the accused actually had the requisite mental element present in their mind at the relevant time (for purposely, knowingly, recklessly etc.) (see concurrence);

2. objective, where the requisite mens rea element is imputed to the accused, on the basis that a reasonable person would have had the mental element in the same circumstances (for negligence); or

3. hybrid, where the test is both subjective and objective.

The court will have little difficulty in establishing mens rea if there is actual evidence – for instance, if the accused made an admissible admission. This would satisfy a subjective test. But a significant proportion of those accused of crimes makes no such admission. Hence, some degree of objectivity must be brought to bear as the basis upon which to impute the necessary components. It is always reasonable to assume that people of ordinary intelligence are aware of their physical surroundings and of the ordinary laws of cause and effect (see causation). Thus, when a person plans what to do and what not to do, they will understand the range of likely outcomes from given behaviour on a sliding scale from "inevitable" to "probable" to "possible" to "improbable". The more an outcome shades towards the "inevitable" end of the scale, the more likely it is that the accused both foresaw and desired it, and, therefore, the safer it is to impute intention. If there is clear subjective evidence that the accused did not have foresight, but a reasonable person would have, the hybrid test may find criminal negligence. In terms of the burden of proof, the requirement is that a jury must have a high degree of certainty before convicting, defined as "beyond a reasonable doubt" in the United States and "sure" in the United Kingdom. It is this reasoning that justifies the defenses of infancy, and of lack of mental capacity under the M'Naghten Rules, an alternate common law rule (e.g., Durham rule), and one of various statutes defining mental illness as an excuse. Moreover, if there is an irrebuttable presumption of doli incapax – that is, that the accused did not have sufficient understanding of the nature and quality of his actions – then the requisite mens rea is absent no matter what degree of probability might otherwise have been present. For these purposes, therefore, where the relevant statutes are silent and it is for the common law to form the basis of potential liability, the reasonable person must be endowed with the same intellectual and physical qualities as the accused, and the test must be whether an accused with these specific attributes would have had the requisite foresight and desire.

In English law, s. 8 Criminal Justice Act 1967 provides a statutory framework within which mens rea is assessed. It states: "A court or jury, in determining whether a person has committed an offense,"

Under s. 8(b), therefore, the jury is allowed a wide latitude in applying a hybrid test to impute intention or foresight (for the purposes of recklessness) on the basis of all the evidence.

Relevance of motive
One of the mental components often raised in issue is that of motive. If the accused admits to having a motive consistent with the elements of foresight and desire, this will add to the level of probability that the actual outcome was intended (it makes the prosecution case more credible). But if there is clear evidence that the accused had a different motive, this may decrease the probability that he or she desired the actual outcome. In such a situation, the motive may become subjective evidence that the accused did not intend, but was reckless or willfully blind.

Motive cannot normally be a defense. If, for example, a person breaks into a laboratory used for the testing of pharmaceuticals on animals, the question of guilt is determined by the presence of an actus reus, i.e. entry without consent and damage to property, and a mens rea, i.e. intention to enter and cause the damage. That the person might have had a clearly articulated political motive to protest such testing does not affect liability. If motive has any relevance, this may be addressed in the sentencing part of the trial, when the court considers what punishment, if any, is appropriate.

Rarely, a motive may amount to a defence if it is specifically allowed in law, or is protected as a right (for example, if a conviction for crimes committed during a protest would unduly interfere with free speech rights; see DPP v Ziegler).

Recklessness (United States: "willful blindness")
In such cases, there is clear subjective evidence that the accused foresaw but did not desire the particular outcome. When the accused failed to stop the given behavior, he took the risk of causing the given loss or damage. There is always some degree of intention subsumed within recklessness. During the course of the conduct, the accused foresees that he may be putting another at risk of injury: A choice must be made at that point in time. By deciding to proceed, the accused actually intends the other to be exposed to the risk of that injury. The greater the probability of that risk maturing into the foreseen injury, the greater the degree of recklessness and, subsequently, sentence rendered. In common law, for example, an unlawful homicide committed recklessly would ordinarily constitute the crime of involuntary manslaughter. One committed with "extreme" or "gross" recklessness as to human life would constitute murder, sometimes defined as "depraved heart" or "abandoned and malignant heart" or "depraved indifference" murder.

Criminal negligence
Here, the test is both subjective and objective. There is credible subjective evidence that the particular accused neither foresaw nor desired the particular outcome, thus potentially excluding both intention and recklessness. But a reasonable person with the same abilities and skills as the accused would have foreseen and taken precautions to prevent the loss and damage being sustained. Only a small percentage of offences are defined with this mens rea requirement. Most legislatures prefer to base liability on either intention or recklessness and, faced with the need to establish recklessness as the default mens rea for guilt, those practising in most legal systems rely heavily on objective tests to establish the minimum requirement of foresight for recklessness.

Consciousness of guilt
Consciousness of guilt is a type of circumstantial evidence of criminal intent that judges, prosecutors, and juries may consider when weighing the relative guilt or innocence of a defendant. It is admissible evidence, and judges are required to instruct juries on this form of evidence. Deceptive statements, failure to cooperate with authorities, or evasive actions made by a defendant after the commission of a crime or other wrongdoing are seen as evidence of a guilty conscience. These are not the typical behaviors of an innocent person, and a "defendant's actions are compared unfavorably to what a normal, innocent person would have done, with the implication that the discrepancy indicates guilt".

title: Mens rea


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Deponent

Deponent may refer to:
 * A person who makes a deposition
 * Deponent verb, a verb active in meaning, but passive or middle in form

title: Deponent


text:
Talk:Causes of mental disorders

Good
Good evening dear wikipedia, I would like to mention that you state that prozac has a good effect on depression however Prozac is a very strong POISON. You can read all about it on www.prozactruth.com Martin.

Halfway through, this article seems to shift from causes to treatment: the part on non-physical causes doesn't discuss causes, but talk therapy and the placebo effect. Ed, do you have something in mind here, or should I dive in and redo this (tomorrow, most likely)? Vicki Rosenzweig (7 May 2002)

You're right, and I'm sorry to say I no longer know where I was going with this. Please dive in! Ed Poor, Thursday, May 23, 2002

I'll do my best, but this isn't really my expertise. Is there a doctor in the house? Vicki Rosenzweig, Sunday, June 16, 2002

I took the liberty of deleting 'lobotomy' as a physical cause of psychiatric disorder. While lobotomy no doubt created many problems for those subjected to it, these are more properly regarded as neurologic effects of the proceedure and not psychiatric disorders. I don't think lobotomy is listed in the DSM, but if I am wrong I would retract this deletion. Beans 11/21/02

 * I think that "psychiatric" disorders preclude those with an organic cause including injury and drug induced states (though drug addiction is usually considered psychiatric). But at this time I have no source on that. Matt 04:37, 30 Dec 2004 (UTC)

 * Hello everyone,

I added a short mention with links for 2 of the best twin studies about schizophrenia. Please don`t delete because they are very good academic research, with very big sample sizes (more than 16,000 and more than 15,000 pairs, respectively), and they have very good methodology also.

Alberto

neuron cell types as a potential cause of mental disorders
I'd like to get a consensus on the following:

There is a theory out there that the cause of some disorders may be attributable to neuron cell types (electrophysiological, morphological, or genetic)

such that disorders don't arise out of dysfunctional brain regions but out of a dysfunctional specific cell type no matter where it occurs. this type of theory may explain why some disorders are difficult to locate on a brain scan (note that most research-grade MRI's don't have the resolution to see beyond individual Cortical minicolumns which are about 1mm^2 surface aria)

for more information see the Q and A at the end of this talk. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCANsfHAS5I

if you want to know about cell types in general visit the Allen institute for brain science youtube channel. They have great talks on the subject. https://www.youtube.com/user/AllenInstitute/playlists

should this information be entered in the article?RJJ4y7 (talk) 14:54, 27 June 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Intro to Psychology
— Assignment last updated by MoussaSl (talk) 15:15, 20 July 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Neuroscience
— Assignment last updated by MeadorBriannaM (talk) 05:15, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

title: Talk:Causes of mental disorders


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User talk:ValShaq

Hello there, welcome to the 'pedia! I hope you like the place and decide to stay. If you need any questions answered about the project then check out Help or drop me a line. Cheers! --maveric149

title: User talk:ValShaq


text:
User talk:Geoffreyporto

Hello there, welcome to the 'pedia! I hope you like the place and decide to stay. If you need any questions answered about the project then check out Help or drop me a line. Cheers! --maveric149

title: User talk:Geoffreyporto


text:
Geastrales

Geastrales is an order of gasterocarpic basidiomycetes (fungi) that are related to Cantharellales. The order contains the single family Geastraceae, which includes the "earthstars" formerly placed in Lycoperdales or Phallales.

Approximately 64 species are classified in this family, divided among eight genera, including Geastrum, Myriostoma and Sphaerobolus. Sphaerobolus species are known as "shotgun fungus" or "cannonball fungus". They colonize wood-based mulches and may throw black, sticky, spore-containing globs onto nearby surfaces.

The fruiting bodies of several earthstars are hygroscopic: in dry weather the "petals" will dry and curl up around the soft spore sac, protecting it. In this state, often the whole fungus becomes detached from the ground and may roll around like a tumbleweed. Once mature, their exoperidium splits into a variable number of rays, which give Geastrum their visible star shape. The exoperidial rays are there to protect the endoperidial body and orchestrate spore dispersal. In wetter weather, the "petals" moisten and uncurl; some even curl backward lifting the spore sac up. This allows rain or animals to hit the spore sac, emitting spores when enough moisture is present for them to germinate and establish.

title: Geastrales