title: Peppermint content: a cooling effect when used topically for muscle pain, nerve pain, relief from itching, or as a fragrance. High oral doses of peppermint oil (500 mg) can cause mucosal irritation and mimic heartburn. As an aroma, peppermint may have memory- and alertness-enhancing properties. Fresh or dried peppermint leaves are often used alone in peppermint tea or with other herbs in herbal teas (tisanes, infusions). Peppermint is used for flavouring ice cream, candy, fruit preserves, alcoholic beverages, chewing gum, toothpaste, and some shampoos, soaps and skin care products. Menthol activates cold-sensitive TRPM8 receptors in the skin and mucosal tissues, and is


title: Peppermint content: the primary source of the cooling sensation that follows the topical application of peppermint oil. Peppermint oil is also used in construction and plumbing to test for the tightness of pipes and disclose leaks by its odor. Medicinal uses of peppermint have not been approved as effective or safe by the US Food and Drug Administration. With caution that the concentration of the peppermint constituent pulegone should not exceed 1% (140 mg), peppermint preparations are considered safe by the European Medicines Agency when used in topical formulations for adult subjects. Diluted peppermint essential oil is safe for oral intake when


title: Peppermint content: only a few drops are used. Although peppermint is commonly available as a herbal supplement, there are no established, consistent manufacturing standards for it, and some peppermint products may be contaminated with toxic metals or other substituted compounds. Skin rashes, irritation, or an allergic reaction may result from applying peppermint oil to the skin, and its use on the face or chest of young children may cause side effects if the oil menthol is inhaled. A common side effect from oral intake of peppermint oil or capsules is heartburn. Oral use of peppermint products may have adverse effects when used


title: Peppermint content: with iron supplements, cyclosporine, medicines for heart conditions or high blood pressure, or medicines to decrease stomach acid. Peppermint Peppermint (Mentha" × "piperita, also known as "Mentha balsamea" Wild.) is a hybrid mint, a cross between watermint and spearmint. Indigenous to Europe and the Middle East, the plant is now widely spread and cultivated in many regions of the world. It is occasionally found in the wild with its parent species. Peppermint was first described in 1753 by Carl Linnaeus from specimens that had been collected in England; he treated it as a species, but it is now universally agreed


title: Proton content: inside a neutron star. It is positive (repulsive) to a radial distance of about 0.6 fm, negative (attractive) at greater distances, and very weak beyond about 2 fm. The radius of hydrated proton appears in the Born equation for calculating the hydration enthalpy of hydronium. Although protons have affinity for oppositely charged electrons, this is a relatively low-energy interaction and so free protons must lose sufficient velocity (and kinetic energy) in order to become closely associated and bound to electrons. High energy protons, in traversing ordinary matter, lose energy by collisions with atomic nuclei, and by ionization of atoms (removing


title: "Foreign relations of Pakistan" content: Asian nations. Pakistan has a strategic geo-political location at the corridor of world major maritime oil supply lines, and has close proximity to the resource and oil rich central Asian countries. Pakistan has been maintaining a tensed relationship with neighbouring Republic of India and close relationships with People's Republic of China and Arab nations. Pakistan is a member of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), is ranked by the US as a major non-NATO ally in the war against terrorism and one of founding members of IMCTC. The foreign policy of Pakistan sets out in the way it interacts with


title: "Proper name (philosophy)" content: that the name refers to a person who may or may not be Roman, and that the truth value depends on whether that is the case or not. But from the point of view of a theory of meaning the question is "how" the word Cicero establishes its referent. Another problem known as Frege's Puzzle, asks why it can be the case that the two names can refer to the same referent, yet not necessarily be considered entirely synonymous. His example is that the proposition "Hesperus is Hesperus" (Hesperus being the Greek name of the morning star) is tautological and


title: "Pregnancy (mammals)" content: of the blastocyst means that two types of cells are forming, an inner-cell mass growing on the interior of the blastocele and cells growing on the exterior of it. In 24 to 48 hours, the zona pellucida breaches. The cells on the exterior of the blastocyst begin excreting an enzyme which erodes epithelial uterine lining and creates a site for implantation. The cells surrounding the blastocyst now destroy cells in the uterine lining, forming small pools of blood, which in turn stimulate the production of capillaries. This is the first stage in the growth of the placenta. The inner cell


title: Potato content: Potato The potato is a starchy, tuberous crop from the perennial nightshade "Solanum tuberosum". In many contexts, "potato" refers to the edible tuber, but it can also refer to the plant itself. Common or slang terms include tater, tattie and spud. Potatoes were introduced to Europe in the second half of the 16th century by the Spanish. Today they are a staple food in many parts of the world and an integral part of much of the world's food supply. As of 2014, potatoes were the world's fourth-largest food crop after maize (corn), wheat, and rice. Wild potato species can


title: Potato content: be found throughout the Americas, from the United States to southern Chile. The potato was originally believed to have been domesticated independently in multiple locations, but later genetic testing of the wide variety of cultivars and wild species traced a single origin for potatoes. In the area of present-day southern Peru and extreme northwestern Bolivia, from a species in the "Solanum brevicaule" complex, potatoes were domesticated approximately 7,000–10,000 years ago. In the Andes region of South America, where the species is indigenous, some close relatives of the potato are cultivated. Following millennia of selective breeding, there are now over 1,000


title: Potato content: different types of potatoes. Over 99% of presently cultivated potatoes worldwide descended from varieties that originated in the lowlands of south-central Chile, which have displaced formerly popular varieties from the Andes. The importance of the potato as a food source and culinary ingredient varies by region and is still changing. It remains an essential crop in Europe, especially eastern and central Europe, where per capita production is still the highest in the world, while the most rapid expansion in production over the past few decades has occurred in southern and eastern Asia, with China and India leading the world in


title: Potato content: overall production as of 2014. Being a nightshade similar to tomatoes, the vegetative and fruiting parts of the potato contain the toxin solanine and are not fit for human consumption. Normal potato tubers that have been grown and stored properly produce glycoalkaloids in amounts small enough to be negligible to human health, but if green sections of the plant (namely sprouts and skins) are exposed to light, the tuber can accumulate a high enough concentration of glycoalkaloids to affect human health. The English word "potato" comes from Spanish "patata" (the name used in Spain). The Spanish Royal Academy says the


title: Potato content: Spanish word is a hybrid of the Taíno "batata" (sweet potato) and the Quechua "papa" (potato). The name originally referred to the sweet potato although the two plants are not closely related. The 16th-century English herbalist John Gerard referred to sweet potatoes as "common potatoes", and used the terms "bastard potatoes" and "Virginia potatoes" for the species we now call "potato". In many of the chronicles detailing agriculture and plants, no distinction is made between the two. Potatoes are occasionally referred to as "Irish potatoes" or "white potatoes" in the United States, to distinguish them from sweet potatoes. The name


title: Potato content: "spud" for a small potato comes from the digging of soil (or a hole) prior to the planting of potatoes. The word has an unknown origin and was originally (c. 1440) used as a term for a short knife or dagger, probably related to the Latin "spad-" a word root meaning "sword"; cf. Spanish "espada", English "spade" and "spadroon". It subsequently transferred over to a variety of digging tools. Around 1845, the name transferred to the tuber itself, the first record of this usage being in New Zealand English. The origin of the word "spud" has erroneously been attributed to


title: Potato content: an 18th-century activist group dedicated to keeping the potato out of Britain, calling itself The Society for the Prevention of Unwholesome Diet . It was Mario Pei's 1949 "The Story of Language" that can be blamed for the word's false origin. Pei writes, "the potato, for its part, was in disrepute some centuries ago. Some Englishmen who did not fancy potatoes formed a Society for the Prevention of Unwholesome Diet. The initials of the main words in this title gave rise to spud." Like most other pre-20th century acronymic origins, this is false, and there is no evidence that a


title: Potato content: Society for the Prevention of Unwholesome Diet ever existed. Potato plants are herbaceous perennials that grow about high, depending on variety, with the leaves dying back after flowering, fruiting and tuber formation. They bear white, pink, red, blue, or purple flowers with yellow stamens. In general, the tubers of varieties with white flowers have white skins, while those of varieties with colored flowers tend to have pinkish skins. Potatoes are mostly cross-pollinated by insects such as bumblebees, which carry pollen from other potato plants, though a substantial amount of self-fertilizing occurs as well. Tubers form in response to decreasing day


title: Potato content: length, although this tendency has been minimized in commercial varieties. After flowering, potato plants produce small green fruits that resemble green cherry tomatoes, each containing about 300 seeds. Like all parts of the plant except the tubers, the fruit contain the toxic alkaloid solanine and are therefore unsuitable for consumption. All new potato varieties are grown from seeds, also called "true potato seed", "TPS" or "botanical seed" to distinguish it from seed tubers. New varieties grown from seed can be propagated vegetatively by planting tubers, pieces of tubers cut to include at least one or two eyes, or cuttings, a


title: Potato content: practice used in greenhouses for the production of healthy seed tubers. Plants propagated from tubers are clones of the parent, whereas those propagated from seed produce a range of different varieties. There are about 5,000 potato varieties worldwide. Three thousand of them are found in the Andes alone, mainly in Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, Chile, and Colombia. They belong to eight or nine species, depending on the taxonomic school. Apart from the 5,000 cultivated varieties, there are about 200 wild species and subspecies, many of which can be cross-bred with cultivated varieties. Cross-breeding has been done repeatedly to transfer resistances to


title: Potato content: certain pests and diseases from the gene pool of wild species to the gene pool of cultivated potato species. Genetically modified varieties have met public resistance in the United States and in the European Union. The major species grown worldwide is "Solanum tuberosum" (a tetraploid with 48 chromosomes), and modern varieties of this species are the most widely cultivated. There are also four diploid species (with 24 chromosomes): "S. stenotomum", "S. phureja", "S. goniocalyx", and "S. ajanhuiri". There are two triploid species (with 36 chromosomes): "S. chaucha" and "S. juzepczukii". There is one pentaploid cultivated species (with 60 chromosomes): "S.


title: Potato content: curtilobum". There are two major subspecies of "Solanum tuberosum": "andigena", or Andean; and "tuberosum", or Chilean. The Andean potato is adapted to the short-day conditions prevalent in the mountainous equatorial and tropical regions where it originated; the Chilean potato, however, native to the Chiloé Archipelago, is adapted to the long-day conditions prevalent in the higher latitude region of southern Chile. The International Potato Center, based in Lima, Peru, holds an ISO-accredited collection of potato germplasm. The international Potato Genome Sequencing Consortium announced in 2009 that they had achieved a draft sequence of the potato genome. The potato genome contains 12


title: Potato content: chromosomes and 860 million base pairs, making it a medium-sized plant genome. More than 99 percent of all current varieties of potatoes currently grown are direct descendants of a subspecies that once grew in the lowlands of south-central Chile. Nonetheless, genetic testing of the wide variety of cultivars and wild species affirms that all potato subspecies derive from a single origin in the area of present-day southern Peru and extreme Northwestern Bolivia (from a species in the "Solanum brevicaule" complex). The wild Crop Wild Relatives Prebreeding project encourages the use of wild relatives in breeding programs. Enriching and preserving the


title: Potato content: gene bank collection to make potatoes adaptive to diverse environmental conditions is seen as a pressing issue due to climate change. Most modern potatoes grown in North America arrived through European settlement and not independently from the South American sources, although at least one wild potato species, "Solanum fendleri", naturally ranges from Peru into Texas, where it is used in breeding for resistance to a nematode species that attacks cultivated potatoes. A secondary center of genetic variability of the potato is Mexico, where important wild species that have been used extensively in modern breeding are found, such as the hexaploid


title: Potato content: "Solanum demissum", as a source of resistance to the devastating late blight disease. Another relative native to this region, "Solanum bulbocastanum", has been used to genetically engineer the potato to resist potato blight. Potatoes yield abundantly with little effort, and adapt readily to diverse climates as long as the climate is cool and moist enough for the plants to gather sufficient water from the soil to form the starchy tubers. Potatoes do not keep very well in storage and are vulnerable to moulds that feed on the stored tubers and quickly turn them rotten, whereas crops such as grain can


title: Potato content: be stored for several years with a low risk of rot. The yield of Calories per acre (about 9.2 million) is higher than that of maize (7.5 million), rice (7.4 million), wheat (3 million), or soybean (2.8 million). There are close to 4,000 varieties of potato including common commercial varieties, each of which has specific agricultural or culinary attributes. Around 80 varieties are commercially available in the UK. In general, varieties are categorized into a few main groups based on common characteristics, such as russet potatoes (rough brown skin), red potatoes, white potatoes, yellow potatoes (also called Yukon potatoes) and


title: Potato content: purple potatoes. For culinary purposes, varieties are often differentiated by their waxiness: floury or mealy "baking" potatoes have more starch (20–22%) than waxy "boiling" potatoes (16–18%). The distinction may also arise from variation in the comparative ratio of two different potato starch compounds: amylose and amylopectin. Amylose, a long-chain molecule, diffuses from the starch granule when cooked in water, and lends itself to dishes where the potato is mashed. Varieties that contain a slightly higher amylopectin content, which is a highly branched molecule, help the potato retain its shape after being boiled in water. Potatoes that are good for making


title: Potato content: potato chips or potato crisps are sometimes called "chipping potatoes", which means they meet the basic requirements of similar varietal characteristics, being firm, fairly clean, and fairly well-shaped. The European Cultivated Potato Database (ECPD) is an online collaborative database of potato variety descriptions that is updated and maintained by the Scottish Agricultural Science Agency within the framework of the European Cooperative Programme for Crop Genetic Resources Networks (ECP/GR)—which is run by the International Plant Genetic Resources Institute (IPGRI). Dozens of potato cultivars have been selectively bred specifically for their skin or, more commonly, flesh color, including gold, red, and blue


title: Potato content: varieties that contain varying amounts of phytochemicals, including carotenoids for gold/yellow or polyphenols for red or blue cultivars. Carotenoid compounds include provitamin A alpha-carotene and beta-carotene, which are converted to the essential nutrient, vitamin A, during digestion. Anthocyanins mainly responsible for red or blue pigmentation in potato cultivars do not have nutritional significance, but are used for visual variety and consumer appeal. Recently, as of 2010, potatoes have also been bioengineered specifically for these pigmentation traits. Genetic research has produced several genetically modified varieties. 'New Leaf', owned by Monsanto Company, incorporates genes from "Bacillus thuringiensis", which confers resistance to the


title: Potato content: Colorado potato beetle; 'New Leaf Plus' and 'New Leaf Y', approved by US regulatory agencies during the 1990s, also include resistance to viruses. McDonald's, Burger King, Frito-Lay, and Procter & Gamble announced they would not use genetically modified potatoes, and Monsanto published its intent to discontinue the line in March 2001. Waxy potato varieties produce two main kinds of potato starch, amylose and amylopectin, the latter of which is most industrially useful. The German chemical company BASF created the Amflora potato, which has been modified to contain antisense against the enzyme that drives synthesis of amylose, namely granule bound starch


title: Potato content: synthase. This resulting potato almost exclusively produces amylopectin, and thus is more useful for the starch industry. In 2010, the European Commission cleared the way for 'Amflora' to be grown in the European Union for industrial purposes only—not for food. Nevertheless, under EU rules, individual countries have the right to decide whether they will allow this potato to be grown on their territory. Commercial planting of 'Amflora' was expected in the Czech Republic and Germany in the spring of 2010, and Sweden and the Netherlands in subsequent years. Another GM potato variety developed by BASF is 'Fortuna' which was made


title: Potato content: resistant to late blight by adding two resistance genes, blb1 and blb2, which originate from the Mexican wild potato Solanum bulbocastanum. In October 2011 BASF requested cultivation and marketing approval as a feed and food from the EFSA. In 2012, GMO development in Europe was stopped by BASF. In November 2014, the USDA approved a genetically modified potato developed by J.R. Simplot Company, which contains genetic modifications that prevent bruising and produce less acrylamide when fried than conventional potatoes; the modifications do not cause new proteins to be made, but rather prevent proteins from being made via RNA interference. The


title: Potato content: potato was first domesticated in the region of modern-day southern Peru and extreme northwestern Bolivia between 8000 and 5000 BC. It has since spread around the world and become a staple crop in many countries. The earliest archaeologically verified potato tuber remains have been found at the coastal site of Ancon (central Peru), dating to 2500 BC. The most widely cultivated variety, "Solanum tuberosum tuberosum", is indigenous to the Chiloé Archipelago, and has been cultivated by the local indigenous people since before the Spanish conquest. According to conservative estimates, the introduction of the potato was responsible for a quarter of


title: Potato content: the growth in Old World population and urbanization between 1700 and 1900. Following the Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire, the Spanish introduced the potato to Europe in the second half of the 16th century, part of the Columbian exchange. The staple was subsequently conveyed by European mariners to territories and ports throughout the world. The potato was slow to be adopted by European farmers, but soon enough it became an important food staple and field crop that played a major role in the European 19th century population boom. However, lack of genetic diversity, due to the very limited number


title: Potato content: of varieties initially introduced, left the crop vulnerable to disease. In 1845, a plant disease known as late blight, caused by the fungus-like oomycete "Phytophthora infestans", spread rapidly through the poorer communities of western Ireland as well as parts of the Scottish Highlands, resulting in the crop failures that led to the Great Irish Famine. Thousands of varieties still persist in the Andes however, where over 100 cultivars might be found in a single valley, and a dozen or more might be maintained by a single agricultural household. In 2016, world production of potatoes was 377 million tonnes, led by


title: Potato content: China with over 26% of the world total (see table). Other major producers were India, Russia, Ukraine and the United States. It remains an essential crop in Europe (especially eastern and central Europe), where per capita production is still the highest in the world, but the most rapid expansion over the past few decades has occurred in southern and eastern Asia. A raw potato is 79% water, 17% carbohydrates (88% is starch), 2% protein, and contains negligible fat (see table). In an amount measuring , raw potato provides of energy and is a rich source of vitamin B6 and vitamin


title: Potato content: C (23% and 24% of the Daily Value, respectively), with no other vitamins or minerals in significant amount (see table). The potato is rarely eaten raw because raw potato starch is poorly digested by humans. When a potato is baked, its contents of vitamin B6 and vitamin C decline notably, while there is little significant change in the amount of other nutrients. Potatoes are often broadly classified as having a high glycemic index (GI) and so are often excluded from the diets of individuals trying to follow a low-GI diet. The GI of potatoes can vary considerably depending on the


title: Potato content: cultivar or cultivar category (such as "red", russet, "white", or King Edward), growing conditions and storage, preparation methods (by cooking method, whether it is eaten hot or cold, whether it is mashed or cubed or consumed whole), and accompanying foods consumed (especially the addition of various high-fat or high-protein toppings). In particular, consuming reheated or cooled potatoes that were previously cooked may yield a lower GI effect. In the UK, potatoes are not considered by the National Health Service (NHS) as counting or contributing towards the recommended daily five portions of fruit and vegetables, the 5-A-Day program. This table shows


title: Potato content: the nutrient content of potatoes next to other major staple foods, each one measured in its respective raw state, even though staple foods are not commonly eaten raw and are usually sprouted or cooked before eating. In sprouted and cooked form, the relative nutritional and anti-nutritional contents of each of these grains (or other foods) may be different from the values in this table. Each nutrient (every row) has the highest number highlighted to show the staple food with the greatest amount in a 100-gram raw portion. Potatoes contain toxic compounds known as glycoalkaloids, of which the most prevalent are


title: Potato content: solanine and chaconine. Solanine is found in other plants in the same family, Solanaceae, which includes such plants as deadly nightshade ("Atropa belladonna"), henbane ("Hyoscyamus niger") and tobacco ("Nicotiana spp."), as well as the food plants eggplant and tomato. These compounds, which protect the potato plant from its predators, are generally concentrated in its leaves, flowers, sprouts, and fruits (in contrast to the tubers). In a summary of several studies, the glycoalkaloid content was highest in the flowers and sprouts and lowest in the tuber flesh. (The glycoalkaloid content was, in order from highest to lowest: flowers, sprouts, leaves, skin,


title: Potato content: roots, berries, peel [skin plus outer cortex of tuber flesh], stems, and tuber flesh.) Exposure to light, physical damage, and age increase glycoalkaloid content within the tuber. Cooking at high temperatures—over —partly destroys these compounds. The concentration of glycoalkaloids in wild potatoes is sufficient to produce toxic effects in humans. Glycoalkaloid poisoning may cause headaches, diarrhea, cramps, and, in severe cases, coma and death. However, poisoning from cultivated potato varieties is very rare. Light exposure causes greening from chlorophyll synthesis, giving a visual clue as to which areas of the tuber may have become more toxic. However, this does not


title: Potato content: provide a definitive guide, as greening and glycoalkaloid accumulation can occur independently of each other. Different potato varieties contain different levels of glycoalkaloids. The Lenape variety was released in 1967 but was withdrawn in 1970 as it contained high levels of glycoalkaloids. Since then, breeders developing new varieties test for this, and sometimes have to discard an otherwise promising cultivar. Breeders try to keep glycoalkaloid levels below 200 mg/kg (200 ppmw). However, when these commercial varieties turn green, they can still approach solanine concentrations of 1000 mg/kg (1000 ppmw). In normal potatoes, analysis has shown solanine levels may be as


title: Potato content: little as 3.5% of the breeders' maximum, with 7–187 mg/kg being found. While a normal potato tuber has 12–20 mg/kg of glycoalkaloid content, a green potato tuber contains 250–280 mg/kg and its skin has 1500–2200 mg/kg. Potatoes are generally grown from "seed potatoes," tubers specifically grown to be free from disease and to provide consistent and healthy plants. To be disease free, the areas where seed potatoes are grown are selected with care. In the US, this restricts production of seed potatoes to only 15 states out of all 50 states where potatoes are grown. These locations are selected for


title: Potato content: their cold, hard winters that kill pests and summers with long sunshine hours for optimum growth. In the UK, most seed potatoes originate in Scotland, in areas where westerly winds prevent aphid attack and thus prevent spread of potato virus pathogens. Potato growth is divided into five phases. During the first phase, sprouts emerge from the seed potatoes and root growth begins. During the second, photosynthesis begins as the plant develops leaves and branches. In the third phase, stolons develop from lower leaf axils on the stem and grow downwards into the ground and on these stolons new tubers develop


title: Potato content: as swellings of the stolon. This phase is often, but not always, associated with flowering. Tuber formation halts when soil temperatures reach ; hence potatoes are considered a cool-season, or winter, crop. Tuber bulking occurs during the fourth phase, when the plant begins investing the majority of its resources in its newly formed tubers. At this phase, several factors are critical to a good yield: optimal soil moisture and temperature, soil nutrient availability and balance, and resistance to pest attacks. The fifth and final phase is the maturation of the tubers: the plant canopy dies back, the tuber skins harden,


title: Potato content: and the sugars in the tubers convert to starches. New tubers may start growing at the surface of the soil. Since exposure to light leads to an undesirable greening of the skins and the development of solanine as a protection from the sun's rays, growers cover surface tubers. Commercial growers cover them by piling additional soil around the base of the plant as it grows (called "hilling" up, or in British English "earthing up"). An alternative method, used by home gardeners and smaller-scale growers, involves covering the growing area with organic mulches such as straw or plastic sheets. Correct potato


title: Potato content: husbandry can be an arduous task in some circumstances. Good ground preparation, harrowing, plowing, and rolling are always needed, along with a little grace from the weather and a good source of water. Three successive plowings, with associated harrowing and rolling, are desirable before planting. Eliminating all root-weeds is desirable in potato cultivation. In general, the potatoes themselves are grown from the eyes of another potato and not from seed. Home gardeners often plant a piece of potato with two or three eyes in a hill of mounded soil. Commercial growers plant potatoes as a row crop using seed tubers,


title: Potato content: young plants or microtubers and may mound the entire row. Seed potato crops are rogued in some countries to eliminate diseased plants or those of a different variety from the seed crop. Potatoes are sensitive to heavy frosts, which damage them in the ground. Even cold weather makes potatoes more susceptible to bruising and possibly later rotting, which can quickly ruin a large stored crop. The historically significant "Phytophthora infestans" (late blight) remains an ongoing problem in Europe and the United States. Other potato diseases include "Rhizoctonia", "Sclerotinia", black leg, powdery mildew, powdery scab and leafroll virus.Insects that commonly transmit


title: Potato content: potato diseases or damage the plants include the Colorado potato beetle, the potato tuber moth, the green peach aphid ("Myzus persicae"), the potato aphid, beet leafhoppers, thrips, and mites. The potato cyst nematode is a microscopic worm that thrives on the roots, thus causing the potato plants to wilt. Since its eggs can survive in the soil for several years, crop rotation is recommended. During the crop year 2008, many of the certified organic potatoes produced in the United Kingdom and certified by the Soil Association as organic were sprayed with a copper pesticide to control potato blight ("Phytophthora infestans").


title: Potato content: According to the Soil Association, the total copper that can be applied to organic land is 6 kg/ha/year. According to an Environmental Working Group analysis of USDA and FDA pesticide residue tests performed from 2000 through 2008, 84% of the 2,216 tested potato samples contained detectable traces of at least one pesticide. A total of 36 unique pesticides were detected on potatoes over the 2,216 samples, though no individual sample contained more than 6 unique pesticide traces, and the average was 1.29 detectable unique pesticide traces per sample. The average quantity of all pesticide traces found in the 2,216 samples


title: Potato content: was 1.602 ppm. While this was a very low value of pesticide residue, it was the highest amongst the 50 vegetables analyzed. At harvest time, gardeners usually dig up potatoes with a long-handled, three-prong "grape" (or graip), i.e., a spading fork, or a potato hook, which is similar to the graip but with tines at a 90° angle to the handle. In larger plots, the plow is the fastest implement for unearthing potatoes. Commercial harvesting is typically done with large potato harvesters, which scoop up the plant and surrounding earth. This is transported up an apron chain consisting of steel


title: Potato content: links several feet wide, which separates some of the dirt. The chain deposits into an area where further separation occurs. Different designs use different systems at this point. The most complex designs use vine choppers and shakers, along with a blower system to separate the potatoes from the plant. The result is then usually run past workers who continue to sort out plant material, stones, and rotten potatoes before the potatoes are continuously delivered to a wagon or truck. Further inspection and separation occurs when the potatoes are unloaded from the field vehicles and put into storage. Immature potatoes may


title: Potato content: be sold as "creamer potatoes" and are particularly valued for taste. These are often harvested by the home gardener or farmer by "grabbling", i.e. pulling out the young tubers by hand while leaving the plant in place. A creamer potato is a variety of potato harvested before it matures to keep it small and tender. It is generally either a Yukon Gold potato or a red potato, called gold creamers or red creamers respectively, and measures approximately in diameter. The skin of creamer potatoes is waxy and high in moisture content, and the flesh contains a lower level of starch


title: Potato content: than other potatoes. Like potatoes in general, they can be prepared by boiling, baking, frying, and roasting. Slightly older than creamer potatoes are "new potatoes", which are also prized for their taste and texture and often come from the same varieties. Potatoes are usually cured after harvest to improve skin-set. Skin-set is the process by which the skin of the potato becomes resistant to skinning damage. Potato tubers may be susceptible to skinning at harvest and suffer skinning damage during harvest and handling operations. Curing allows the skin to fully set and any wounds to heal. Wound-healing prevents infection and


title: Potato content: water-loss from the tubers during storage. Curing is normally done at relatively warm temperatures with high humidity and good gas-exchange if at all possible. Storage facilities need to be carefully designed to keep the potatoes alive and slow the natural process of decomposition, which involves the breakdown of starch. It is crucial that the storage area is dark, ventilated well and, for long-term storage, maintained at temperatures near . For short-term storage, temperatures of about are preferred. On the other hand, temperatures below convert the starch in potatoes into sugar, which alters their taste and cooking qualities and leads to


title: Potato content: higher acrylamide levels in the cooked product, especially in deep-fried dishes. The discovery of acrylamides in starchy foods in 2002 has led to international health concerns. They are believed to be probable carcinogens and their occurrence in cooked foods is being studied for potentially influencing health problems. Under optimum conditions in commercial warehouses, potatoes can be stored for up to 10–12 months. The commercial storage and retrieval of potatoes involves several phases: first "drying" surface moisture; "wound healing" at 85% to 95% relative humidity and temperatures below ; a staged "cooling phase"; a "holding" phase; and a "reconditioning" phase, during


title: Potato content: which the tubers are slowly warmed. Mechanical ventilation is used at various points during the process to prevent condensation and the accumulation of carbon dioxide. When stored in homes unrefrigerated, the shelf life is usually a few weeks. If potatoes develop green areas or start to sprout, trimming or peeling those green-colored parts is inadequate to remove copresent toxins, and such potatoes are no longer edible. The world dedicated in 2010 for potato cultivation. The average world farm yield for potato was 17.4 tonnes per hectare, in 2010. Potato farms in the United States were the most productive in 2010,


title: Potato content: with a nationwide average of 44.3 tonnes per hectare. United Kingdom was a close second. New Zealand farmers have demonstrated some of the best commercial yields in the world, ranging between 60 and 80 tonnes per hectare, some reporting yields of 88 tonnes potatoes per hectare. There is a big gap among various countries between high and low yields, even with the same variety of potato. Average potato yields in developed economies ranges between 38–44 tonnes per hectare. China and India accounted for over a third of world's production in 2010, and had yields of 14.7 and 19.9 tonnes per


title: Potato content: hectare respectively. The yield gap between farms in developing economies and developed economies represents an opportunity loss of over 400 million tonnes of potato, or an amount greater than 2010 world potato production. Potato crop yields are determined by factors such as the crop breed, seed age and quality, crop management practices and the plant environment. Improvements in one or more of these yield determinants, and a closure of the yield gap, can be a major boost to food supply and farmer incomes in the developing world. Potatoes are prepared in many ways: skin-on or peeled, whole or cut up,


title: Potato content: with seasonings or without. The only requirement involves cooking to swell the starch granules. Most potato dishes are served hot but some are first cooked, then served cold, notably potato salad and potato chips (crisps). Common dishes are: mashed potatoes, which are first boiled (usually peeled), and then mashed with milk or yogurt and butter; whole baked potatoes; boiled or steamed potatoes; French-fried potatoes or chips; cut into cubes and roasted; scalloped, diced, or sliced and fried (home fries); grated into small thin strips and fried (hash browns); grated and formed into dumplings, Rösti or potato pancakes. Unlike many foods,


title: Potato content: potatoes can also be easily cooked in a microwave oven and still retain nearly all of their nutritional value, provided they are covered in ventilated plastic wrap to prevent moisture from escaping; this method produces a meal very similar to a steamed potato, while retaining the appearance of a conventionally baked potato. Potato chunks also commonly appear as a stew ingredient. Potatoes are boiled between 10 and 25 minutes, depending on size and type, to become soft. Potatoes are also used for purposes other than eating by humans, for example: Peruvian cuisine naturally contains the potato as a primary ingredient


title: Potato content: in many dishes, as around 3,000 varieties of this tuber are grown there. Some of the more notable dishes include boiled potato as a base for several dishes or with ají-based sauces like in Papa a la Huancaína or ocopa, diced potato for its use in soups like in cau cau, or in Carapulca with dried potato (papa seca). Smashed condimented potato is used in causa Limeña and papa rellena. French-fried potatoes are a typical ingredient in Peruvian stir-fries, including the classic dish lomo saltado. Chuño is a freeze-dried potato product traditionally made by Quechua and Aymara communities of Peru


title: Potato content: and Bolivia, and is known in various countries of South America, including Peru, Bolivia, Argentina, and Chile. In Chile's Chiloé Archipelago, potatoes are the main ingredient of many dishes, including milcaos, chapaleles, curanto and chochoca. In Ecuador, the potato, as well as being a staple with most dishes, is featured in the hearty "locro de papas", a thick soup of potato, squash, and cheese. In the UK, potatoes form part of the traditional staple fish and chips. Roast potatoes are commonly served with a Sunday roast, and mashed potatoes form a major component of several other traditional dishes such as


title: Potato content: shepherd's pie, bubble and squeak, and bangers and mash. New potatoes may be cooked with mint and often served with butter. The Tattie scone is a popular Scottish dish containing potatoes. Colcannon is a traditional Irish food made with mashed potato, shredded kale or cabbage, and onion; champ is a similar dish. Boxty pancakes are eaten throughout Ireland, although associated especially with the North, and in Irish diaspora communities; they are traditionally made with grated potatoes, soaked to loosen the starch and mixed with flour, buttermilk and baking powder. A variant eaten and sold in Lancashire, especially Liverpool, is made


title: Potato content: with cooked and mashed potatoes. "Bryndzové halušky" is the Slovakian national dish, made of a batter of flour and finely grated potatoes that is boiled to form dumplings. These are then mixed with regionally varying ingredients. In Germany, Northern and Eastern Europe (especially in Scandinavian countries), Finland, Poland, Russia, Belarus and Ukraine, newly harvested, early ripening varieties are considered a special delicacy. Boiled whole and served un-peeled with dill, these "new potatoes" are traditionally consumed with Baltic herring. Puddings made from grated potatoes (kugel, kugelis, and potato babka) are popular items of Ashkenazi, Lithuanian, and Belarusian cuisine. German fries and


title: Potato content: various version of Potato salad are part of German cuisine. Bauernfrühstück (literally "farmer's breakfast") is a warm German dish made from fried potatoes, eggs, ham and vegetables. Cepelinai is Lithuanian national dish. They are a type of dumpling made from riced potatoes (see Potato ricer) and usually stuffed with minced meat, although sometimes dry cottage cheese (curd) or mushrooms are used instead. In Western Europe, especially in Belgium, sliced potatoes are fried to create "frieten", the original French fried potatoes. "Stamppot", a traditional Dutch meal, is based on mashed potatoes mixed with vegetables. In France, the most notable potato dish


title: Potato content: is the "Hachis Parmentier", named after Antoine-Augustin Parmentier, a French pharmacist, nutritionist, and agronomist who, in the late 18th century, was instrumental in the acceptance of the potato as an edible crop in the country. The "pâté aux pommes de terre" is a regional potato dish from the central Allier and Limousin regions. In the north of Italy, in particular, in the Friuli region of the northeast, potatoes serve to make a type of pasta called gnocchi. Similarly, cooked and mashed potatoes or potato flour can be used in the Knödel or dumpling eaten with or added to meat dishes


title: Potato content: all over central and Eastern Europe, but especially in Bavaria and Luxembourg. Potatoes form one of the main ingredients in many soups such as the vichyssoise and Albanian potato and cabbage soup. In western Norway, komle is popular. A traditional Canary Islands dish is Canarian wrinkly potatoes or "papas arrugadas". "Tortilla de patatas" (potato omelette) and "patatas bravas" (a dish of fried potatoes in a spicy tomato sauce) are near-universal constituent of Spanish tapas. In the US, potatoes have become one of the most widely consumed crops and thus have a variety of preparation methods and condiments. French fries and


title: Potato content: often hash browns are commonly found in typical American fast-food burger "joints" and cafeterias. One popular favourite involves a baked potato with cheddar cheese (or sour cream and chives) on top, and in New England "smashed potatoes" (a chunkier variation on mashed potatoes, retaining the peel) have great popularity. Potato flakes are popular as an instant variety of mashed potatoes, which reconstitute into mashed potatoes by adding water, with butter or oil and salt to taste. A regional dish of Central New York, salt potatoes are bite-size new potatoes boiled in water saturated with salt then served with melted butter.


title: Potato content: At more formal dinners, a common practice includes taking small red potatoes, slicing them, and roasting them in an iron skillet. Among American Jews, the practice of eating latkes (fried potato pancakes) is common during the festival of Hanukkah. A traditional Acadian dish from New Brunswick is known as "poutine râpée". The Acadian poutine is a ball of grated and mashed potato, salted, sometimes filled with pork in the centre, and boiled. The result is a moist ball about the size of a baseball. It is commonly eaten with salt and pepper or brown sugar. It is believed to have


title: Potato content: originated from the German "Klöße", prepared by early German settlers who lived among the Acadians. "Poutine", by contrast, is a hearty serving of French fries, fresh cheese curds and hot gravy. Tracing its origins to Quebec in the 1950s, it has become a widespread and popular dish throughout Canada. Potato grading for Idaho potatoes is performed in which No. 1 potatoes are the highest quality and No. 2 are rated as lower in quality due to their appearance (e.g. blemishes or bruises, pointy ends). Potato density assessment can be performed by floating them in brines. High-density potatoes are desirable in


title: Potato content: the production of dehydrated mashed potatoes, potato crisps and french fries. In South Asia, the potato is a very popular traditional staple. In India, the most popular potato dishes are "aloo ki sabzi", batata vada, and samosa, which is spicy mashed potato mixed with a small amount of vegetable stuffed in conical dough, and deep fried. Potatoes are also a major ingredient as fast food items, such as aloo chaat, where they are deep fried and served with chutney. In Northern India, alu dum and alu paratha are a favourite part of the diet; the first is a spicy curry


title: Potato content: of boiled potato, the second is a type of stuffed chapati. A dish called masala dosa from South India is very notable all over India. It is a thin pancake of rice and pulse paste rolled over spicy smashed potato and eaten with sambhar and chutney. Poori in south India in particular in Tamil Nadu is almost always taken with smashed potato masal. Other favourite dishes are alu tikki and pakoda items. Vada pav is a popular vegetarian fast food dish in Mumbai and other regions in the Maharashtra in India. Aloo posto (a curry with potatoes and poppy seeds)


title: Potato content: is immensely popular in East India, especially Bengal. Although potatoes are not native to India, it has become a vital part of food all over the country especially North Indian food preparations. In Tamil Nadu this tuber acquired a name based on its appearance 'urulai-k-kizhangu' (உருளைக் கிழங்கு) meaning cylindrical tuber. The Aloo gosht, Potato and meat curry, is one of the popular dishes in South Asia, especially in Pakistan. In East Asia, particularly Southeast Asia, rice is by far the predominant starch crop, with potatoes a secondary crop, especially in China and Japan. However, it is used in northern China


title: Potato content: where rice is not easily grown, with a popular dish being 青椒土豆丝 (qīng jiāo tǔ dòu sī), made with green pepper, vinegar and thin slices of potato. In the winter, roadside sellers in northern China will also sell roasted potatoes. It is also occasionally seen in Korean and Thai cuisines. During the late 19th century, numerous images of potato harvesting appeared in European art, including the works of Willem Witsen and Anton Mauve. Van Gogh's 1885 painting "The Potato Eaters" portrays a family eating potatoes. Van Gogh said he wanted to depict peasants as they really were. He deliberately chose


title: Potato content: coarse and ugly models, thinking that they would be natural and unspoiled in his finished work. Jean-François Millet's "The Potato Harvest" depicts peasants working in the plains between Barbizon and Chailly. It presents a theme representative of the peasants' struggle for survival. Millet's technique for this work incorporated paste-like pigments thickly applied over a coarsely textured canvas. The potato has been an essential crop in the Andes since the pre-Columbian Era. The Moche culture from Northern Peru made ceramics from earth, water, and fire. This pottery was a sacred substance, formed in significant shapes and used to represent important themes.


title: Potato content: Potatoes are represented anthropomorphically as well as naturally. Invented in 1949 and marketed and sold commercially by Hasbro in 1952, Mr. Potato Head is an American toy that consists of a plastic potato and attachable plastic parts such as ears and eyes to make a face. It was the first toy ever advertised on television. Potato The potato is a starchy, tuberous crop from the perennial nightshade "Solanum tuberosum". In many contexts, "potato" refers to the edible tuber, but it can also refer to the plant itself. Common or slang terms include tater, tattie and spud. Potatoes were introduced to


title: Pentecostalism content: in the Jim Crow South were under great pressure to conform to segregation. Ultimately, North American Pentecostalism would divide into white and African-American branches. Though it never entirely disappeared, interracial worship within Pentecostalism would not reemerge as a widespread practice until after the civil rights movement. Women were vital to the early Pentecostal movement. Believing that whoever received the Pentecostal experience had the responsibility to use it towards the preparation for Christ's second coming, Pentecostal women held that the baptism in the Holy Spirit gave them empowerment and justification to engage in activities traditionally denied to them. The first person


title: "Odd-toed ungulate" content: Odd-toed ungulate Members of the order Perissodactyla, also known as odd-toed ungulates, are mammals characterized by an odd number of toes and by hindgut fermentation with somewhat simple stomachs. "Perissodactyla" comes from the Ancient Greek περισσός ("perissós", "uneven") and δάκτυλος ("dáktylos", "finger, toe"). Unlike the even-toed ungulates, they digest plant cellulose in their intestines rather than in one or more stomach chambers. The order includes three extant families: Equidae (horses, asses, and zebras), Rhinocerotidae (rhinoceroses), and Tapiridae (tapirs), with a total of about 17 species. Despite their very different appearances, they were recognized as related families in the 19th century


title: "Odd-toed ungulate" content: by the zoologist Richard Owen, who also coined the order name. The largest odd-toed ungulates are rhinoceroses, and the extinct "Paraceratherium", a hornless rhino from the Oligocene, is considered one of the largest land mammals of all time. At the other extreme, an early member of the order, the prehistoric horse "Hyracotherium", had a withers height of only . Apart from dwarf varieties of the domestic horse and donkey, perissodactyls reach a body length of and a weight of . While rhinos have only sparse hair and exhibit a thick epidermis, tapirs and horses have dense, short coats. Most species


title: "Odd-toed ungulate" content: are grey or brown, although zebras and young tapirs are striped. The main axes of both the front and rear feet pass through the third toe, which is always the largest. The remaining toes have been reduced in size to varying degrees. Tapirs, which are adapted to walking on soft ground, have four toes on their fore feet and three on their hind feet. Living rhinos have three toes on both the front and hind feet. Modern equines possess only a single toe; however, their feet are equipped with hooves, which almost completely cover the toe. Rhinos and tapirs, by


title: "Odd-toed ungulate" content: contrast, have hooves covering only the leading edge of the toes, with the bottom being soft. The ulnae and fibulae are reduced in horses. A common feature that clearly distinguishes this group from other mammals is the saddle-shaped ankle between the astragalus and the scaphoid, which greatly restricts the mobility of the foot. The thigh is relatively short, and the clavicle is absent. Odd-toed ungulates have a long upper jaw with an extended diastema between the front and cheek teeth, giving them an elongated head. The various forms of snout between families are due to differences in the form of


title: "Odd-toed ungulate" content: the premaxilla. The lacrimal bone has projecting cusps in the eye sockets and a wide contact with the nasal bone. The temporomandibular joint is high and the mandible is enlarged. Rhinos have one or two horns made of agglutinated keratin, unlike the horns of even-toed ungulates, which have a bony core. The number and form of the teeth vary according to diet. The incisors and canines can be very small or completely absent, as in the two African species of rhinoceros. In the horses, usually only the males possess canines. The surface shape and height of the molars is heavily


title: "Odd-toed ungulate" content: dependent on whether soft leaves or hard grass makes up the main component of their diets. Three or four cheek teeth are present on each jaw half, so the dental formula of odd-toed ungulates is: All perissodactyls are hindgut fermenters. In contrast to ruminants, hindgut fermenters store digested food that has left the stomach in an enlarged cecum, where the food is digested by bacteria. No gallbladder is present. The stomach of perissodactyls is simply built, while the cecum accommodates up to in horses. The intestine is very long, reaching up to in horses. Extraction of nutrients from food is


title: "Odd-toed ungulate" content: relatively inefficient, which probably explains why no odd-toed ungulates are small; for large animals, nutritional requirements per unit of body weight are lower and the surface-to-volume ratio is smaller. The present distribution of most perissodactyl species is only a small fraction of their original range. Members of this group are now found only in Central and South America, eastern and southern Africa, and central, southern, and southeastern Asia. During the peak of odd-toed ungulate existence, from the Eocene to the Oligocene, perissodactyls were distributed over much of the globe, the only exceptions being Australia and Antarctica. Horses and tapirs arrived


title: "Odd-toed ungulate" content: in South America after the formation of the Isthmus of Panama in the Pliocene, around 3 million years ago. In North America, they died out around 10,000 years ago, while in Europe, the tarpans disappeared in the 19th century. Hunting and habitat restriction have reduced the present-day species to fragmented relict populations. In contrast, domesticated horses and donkeys have gained a worldwide distribution, and feral animals of both species are now also found in regions outside of their original range, such as in Australia. Perissodactyls inhabit a number of different habitats, leading to different lifestyles. Tapirs are solitary and inhabit


title: "Odd-toed ungulate" content: mainly tropical rainforests. Rhinos tend to live alone in rather dry savannas, and in Asia, wet marsh or forest areas. Horses inhabit open areas such as grasslands, steppes, or semideserts, and live together in groups. Odd-toed ungulates are exclusively herbivores that feed, to varying degrees, on grasses, leaves, and other plant parts. A distinction is often made between primarily grass feeders (white rhinos, equines) and leaf feeders (tapirs, other rhinos). Odd-toed ungulates are characterized by a long gestation period and a small litter size, usually delivering a single young. The gestation period is 330–500 days, being longest in the rhinos.


title: "Odd-toed ungulate" content: Newborn perissodactyls are precocial; young horses and rhinos can follow the mother after a few hours. The young are nursed for a relatively long time, often into their second year, reaching sexual maturity around eight or ten years old. Perissodactyls are long-lived, with several species reaching an age of almost 50 years in captivity. Traditionally, the odd-toed ungulates were classified with other mammals such as artiodactyls, hyraxes, mammals with a proboscis, and other "ungulates". A close family relationship with hyraxes was suspected based on similarities in the construction of the ear and the course of the carotid artery. Recent molecular


title: "Odd-toed ungulate" content: genetic studies, however, have shown the ungulates to be polyphyletic, meaning that in some cases the similarities are the result of convergent evolution rather than common ancestry. Elephants and hyraxes are now considered to belong to Afrotheria, so are not closely related to the perissodactyls. These, in turn, are in the Laurasiatheria, a superorder that had its origin in the former supercontinent Laurasia. Molecular genetic findings suggest that the cloven Artiodactyla (containing the cetaceans as a deeply nested subclade) are the sister taxon of the Perissodactyla; together, the two groups form the Euungulata. More distant are the bats (Chiroptera) and


title: "Odd-toed ungulate" content: Ferae (a common taxon of carnivorans, Carnivora, and pangolins, Pholidota). In a discredited alternative scenario, a close relationship exists between perissodactyls, carnivores, and bats, this assembly comprising the Pegasoferae. According to studies published in March 2015, odd-toed ungulates are in a close family relationship with at least some of the so-called Meridiungulata, a very diverse group of mammals living from the Paleocene to the Pleistocene in South America, whose systematic unity is largely unexplained. Some of these were classified on the basis of their paleogeographic distribution. However, a close relationship can be worked out to perissodactyls by means of protein


title: "Odd-toed ungulate" content: sequencing and comparison with fossil collagen from remnants of phylogenetically young members of the Meridiungulata (specifically "Macrauchenia" from the Litopterna and "Toxodon" from the Notoungulata). Both kinship groups, the odd-toed ungulates and the Litopterna-Notoungulata, are now in the higher-level taxon of Panperissodactyla. This kinship group is included among the Euungulata which also contains the even-toed ungulates and whales (Artiodactyla). The separation of the Litopterna-Notoungulata group from the perissodactyls probably took place before the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event. "Condylarths" can probably be considered the starting point for the development of the two groups, as they represent a heterogeneous group of primitive ungulates


title: "Odd-toed ungulate" content: that mainly inhabited the northern hemisphere in the Paleogene. Odd-toed ungulates (Perissodactyla) comprise three living families with around 17 species—in the horse the exact count is still controversial. Rhinos and tapirs are more closely related to each other than to the horses. The separation of horses from other perissodactyls took place according to molecular genetic analysis in the Paleocene some 56 million years ago, while the rhinos and tapirs split off in the lower middle Eocene, about 47 million years ago. There are many perissodactyl fossils of multivariant form. The major lines of development include the following groups: Relationships within


title: "Odd-toed ungulate" content: the large group of odd-toed ungulates are not fully understood. Initially, after the establishment of "Perissodactyla" by Richard Owen in 1848, the present-day representatives were considered equal in rank. In the first half of the 20th century, a more systematic differentiation of odd-toed ungulates began, based on a consideration of fossil forms, and they were placed in two major suborders: Hippomorpha and Ceratomorpha. The Hippomorpha comprises today's horses and their extinct members (Equoidea); the Ceratomorpha consist of tapirs and rhinos plus their extinct members (Tapiroidea and Rhinocerotoidea). The names Hippomorpha and Ceratomorpha were introduced in 1937 by Horace Elmer Wood,


title: "Odd-toed ungulate" content: in response to criticism of the name "Solidungula" that he proposed three years previously. It had been based on the grouping of horses and Tridactyla and on the rhinoceros/tapir complex. The extinct brontotheriidae were also classified under Hippomorpha and therefore possess a close relationship to horses. Some researchers accept this assignment because of similar dental features, but there is also the view that a very basal position within the odd-toed ungulates places them rather in the group of "Titanotheriomorpha". Originally, the Chalicotheriidae were seen as members of Hippomorpha, and presented as such in 1941. William Berryman Scott thought that, as


title: "Odd-toed ungulate" content: claw-bearing perissodactyls, they belong in the new suborder Ancylopoda (where Ceratomorpha and Hippomorpha as odd-toed ungulates were combined in the group of Chelopoda). The term Ancylopoda, coined by Edward Drinker Cope in 1889, had been established for chalicotheres. However, further morphological studies from the 1960s showed a middle position of Ancylopoda between Hippomorpha and Ceratomorpha. Leonard Burton Radinsky saw all three major groups of odd-toed ungulates as peers, based on the extremely long and independent phylogenetic development of the three lines. In the 1980s, Jeremy J. Hooker saw a general similarity of Ancylopoda and "Ceratomorpha" based on dentition, especially in


title: "Odd-toed ungulate" content: the earliest members, leading to the unification in 1984 of the two submissions in the interim order, "Tapiromorpha". At the same time he expanded the Ancylopoda to include the "Lophiodontidae". The name "Tapiromorpha" goes back to Ernst Haeckel, who coined it in 1873, but it was long considered synonymous to Ceratomorpha because Wood had not considered it in 1937 when Ceratomorpha were named, since the term had been used quite differently in the past. Also in 1984, Robert M. Schoch used the conceptually similar term Moropomorpha, which today applies synonymously to Tapiromorpha. Included within the Tapiromorpha are the now extinct


title: "Odd-toed ungulate" content: Isectolophidae, a sister group of the Ancylopoda-Ceratomorpha group and thus the most primitive members of this relationship complex. The evolutionary development of Perissodactyla is well documented in the fossil record. Numerous finds are evidence of the adaptive radiation of this group, which was once much more varied and widely dispersed. "Radinskya" from the late Paleocene of East Asia is often considered to be one of the oldest close relatives of the ungulates. Its only 8 cm skull must have belonged to a very small and primitive animal with a π-shaped crown pattern on the enamel of its rear molars similar


title: "Odd-toed ungulate" content: to that of perissodactyls and their relatives, especially the rhinos. Finds of "Cambaytherium" and "Kalitherium" in the Cambay shale of western India indicate an origin in Asia dating to the Lower Eocene roughly 54.5 million years ago. Their teeth also show similarities to "Radinskya" as well as to the Tethytheria clade. The saddle-shaped configuration of the navicular joints and the mesaxonic construction of the front and hind feet also indicates a close relationship to Tethytheria. However, this construction deviates from that of "Cambaytherium", indicating that it is actually a member of a sister group. Ancestors of Perissodactyla may have arrived


title: "Odd-toed ungulate" content: via an island bridge from the Afro-Arab landmass onto the Indian subcontinent as it drifted north towards Asia. The alignment of hyopsodontids and phenacodontids to Perissodactyla in general suggests an older Laurasian origin and distribution for the clade, dispersed across the northern continents already in the early Paleocene. These forms already show a fairly well-developed molar morphology, with no intermediary forms as evidence of the course of its development. The close relationship between meridiungulate mammals and perissoodactyls in particular is of interest since the latter appear in South America soon after the KT event, implying rapid ecological radiation and dispersal


title: "Odd-toed ungulate" content: after the mass extinction. The Perissodactyla appear relatively abruptly at the beginning of the Lower Paleocene before about 63 million years ago, both in North America and Asia, in the form of phenacodontids and hyopsodontids. The oldest finds from an extant group originate among other sources from "Sifrhippus", an ancestor of the horses from the Willswood lineup in northwestern Wyoming. The distant ancestors of tapirs appeared not too long after that in the Ghazij lineup in Balochistan, such as "Ganderalophus", as well as "Litolophus" from the Chalicotheriidae line, or "Eotitanops" from the group of brontotheriidae. Initially, the members of the


title: "Odd-toed ungulate" content: different lineages looked quite similar with an arched back and generally four toes on the front and three on the hind feet. "Hyracotherium", which is considered a member of the horse family, outwardly resembled "Hyrachyus", the first representative of the rhino and tapir line. All were small compared to later forms and lived as fruit and foliage eaters in forests. The first of the mega-fauna to emerge were the brontotheres, in the Middle and Upper Eocene. "Megacerops", known from North America, reached a withers height of and could have weighed just over . The decline of brontotheres at the end


title: "Odd-toed ungulate" content: of the Eocene is associated with competition arising from the advent of more successful herbivores. More successful lines of odd-toed ungulates emerged at the end of the Eocene when dense jungles gave way to steppe, such as the chalicotheriid rhinos, and their immediate relatives; their development also began with very small forms. "Paraceratherium", one of the largest mammals ever to walk the earth, evolved during this era. They weighed up to and lived throughout the Oligocene in Eurasia. About 20 million years ago at the onset of the Miocene the perissodactyls first reached Africa when it became connected to Eurasia


title: "Odd-toed ungulate" content: because of the closing of the Tethys Ocean. For the same reason, however, new animals such as the mammoths also entered the ancient settlement areas of odd-toed ungulates, creating competition that led to the extinction of some of their lines. The rise of ruminants, which occupied similar ecological niches and had a much more efficient digestive system, is also associated with the decline in diversity of odd-toed ungulates. A significant cause for the decline of perissodactyls was climate change during the Miocene, leading to a cooler and drier climate accompanied by the spread of open landscapes. However, some lines flourished,


title: "Odd-toed ungulate" content: such as the horses and rhinos; anatomical adaptations made it possible for them to consume tougher grass food. This led to open land forms that dominated the newly created landscapes. With the emergence of the Isthmus of Panama in the Pliocene, perissodactyls and other megafauna were given access to one of their last habitable continents: South America. However, many perissodactyls became extinct at the end of the ice ages, including American horses and the "Elasmotherium". Whether over-hunting by humans (overkill hypothesis), climatic change, or a combination of both factors was responsible for the extinction of ice age mega-fauna, remains controversial.


title: "Odd-toed ungulate" content: In 1758, in his seminal work "Systema Naturae", Linnaeus (1707–1778) classified horses ("Equus") together with hippos ("Hippopotamus"). At that time, this category also included the tapirs ("Tapirus"), more precisely the lowland or South American tapir ("Tapirus terrestus"), the only tapir then known in Europe. Linnaeus classified this tapir as "Hippopotamus terrestris" and put both genera in the group of the "Belluae" ("beasts"). He combined the rhinos with the Glires, a group now consisting of the lagomorphs and rodents. Mathurin Jacques Brisson (1723–1806) first separated the tapirs and hippos in 1762 with the introduction of the concept "le tapir". He also


title: "Odd-toed ungulate" content: separated the rhinos from the rodents, but did not combine the three families now known as the odd-toed ungulates. In the transition to the 19th century, the individual perissodactyl genera were associated with various other groups, such as the proboscidean and even-toed ungulates. In 1795, Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire (1772- 1844) and Georges Cuvier (1769–1832) introduced the term "pachyderm" (Pachydermata), including in it not only the rhinos and elephants, but also the hippos, pigs, peccaries, tapirs and hyrax . The horses were still generally regarded as a group separate from other mammals and were often classified under the name "Solidungula" or


title: "Odd-toed ungulate" content: "Solipèdes", meaning "one-hoof animal". In 1861, Henri Marie Ducrotay de Blainville (1777–1850) classified ungulates by the structure of their feet, differentiating those with an even number of toes from those with an odd number. He moved the horses as "solidungulate" over to the tapirs and rhinos as "multungulate" animals and referred to all of them together as "onguligrades à doigts impairs", coming close to the concept of the odd-toed ungulate as a systematic unit. Richard Owen (1804–1892) quoted Blainville in his study on fossil mammals of the Isle of Wight and introduced the name "Perissodactyla". In 1884, Othniel Charles Marsh


title: "Odd-toed ungulate" content: (1831–1899) came up with the concept "Mesaxonia", which he used for what are today called the odd-toed ungulates, including their extinct relatives, but explicitly excluding the hyrax. "Mesaxonia" is now considered a synonym of "Perissodactyla", but it was sometimes also used for the true odd-toed ungulates as a subcategory (rhinos, horses, tapirs), while "Perissodactyla" stood for the entire order, including the hyrax. The assumption that hyraxes were "Perissodactyla" was held well into the 20th century. Only with the advent of molecular genetic research methods had it been recognized that the hyrax is not closely related to perissodactyls but rather to


title: "Odd-toed ungulate" content: elephants and manatees. The domestic horse and the donkey play an important role in human history particularly as transport, work and pack animals. The domestication of both species began several millennia B.C. Due to the motorisation of agriculture and the spread of automobile traffic, such use has declined sharply in Western industrial countries; riding is usually undertaken more as a hobby or sport. In less developed regions of the world, the traditional uses for these animals are, however, still widespread. To a lesser extent, horses and donkeys are also kept for their meat and their milk. In contrast, the existence


title: "Odd-toed ungulate" content: in the wild of almost all other odd-toed ungulates species has declined dramatically because of hunting and habitat destruction. The quagga is extinct and Przewalski's horse has been eradicated in the wild. Present threat levels, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (2012): Odd-toed ungulate Members of the order Perissodactyla, also known as odd-toed ungulates, are mammals characterized by an odd number of toes and by hindgut fermentation with somewhat simple stomachs. "Perissodactyla" comes from the Ancient Greek περισσός ("perissós", "uneven") and δάκτυλος ("dáktylos", "finger, toe"). Unlike the even-toed ungulates, they digest plant cellulose in their intestines rather


title: "Partially ordered set" content: other operation used to form these orders, the disjoint union of two partially ordered sets (with no order relation between elements of one set and elements of the other set) is called in this context parallel composition. In some contexts, the partial order defined above is called a non-strict (or reflexive, or weak) partial order. In these contexts, a strict (or irreflexive) partial order "<" is a binary relation that is irreflexive, transitive and asymmetric, i.e. which satisfies for all "a", "b", and "c" in "P": Strict and non-strict partial orders are closely related. A non-strict partial order may be


title: Tetraodontidae content: Tetraodontidae The Tetraodontidae are a family of primarily marine and estuarine fish of the order Tetraodontiformes. The family includes many familiar species which are variously called pufferfish, puffers, balloonfish, blowfish, blowies, bubblefish, globefish, swellfish, toadfish, toadies, honey toads, sugar toads, and sea squab. They are morphologically similar to the closely related porcupinefish, which have large external spines (unlike the thinner, hidden spines of the Tetraodontidae, which are only visible when the fish has puffed up). The scientific name refers to the four large teeth, fused into an upper and lower plate, which are used for crushing the hard shells of


title: Tetraodontidae content: crustaceans and mollusks, their natural prey. The majority of pufferfish species are toxic and some are among the most poisonous vertebrates in the world. In certain species, the internal organs, such as liver, and sometimes their skin, contain tetrodotoxin and are highly toxic to most animals when eaten; nevertheless, the meat of some species is considered a delicacy in Japan (as 河豚, pronounced as "fugu"), Korea (as 복 "bok" or 복어 "bogeo"), and China (as 河豚 "hétún") when prepared by specially trained chefs who know which part is safe to eat and in what quantity. Other pufferfish species with nontoxic


title: Tetraodontidae content: flesh, such as the northern puffer, "Sphoeroides maculatus", of Chesapeake Bay, are considered a delicacy elsewhere. The species "Torquigener albomaculosus" was called by David Attenborough "the greatest artist of the animal kingdom" due to the males<nowiki>'</nowiki> unique habit of wooing females by creating nests in sand composed of complex geometric designs. The Tetraodontidae contain at least 191 species of puffers in 29 genera: They are typically small to medium in size, although a few species can reach lengths of greater than . They are most diverse in the tropics, relatively uncommon in the temperate zone, and completely absent from cold


title: Tetraodontidae content: waters. Most pufferfish species live in marine or brackish waters, but some can enter fresh water. About 35 species spend their entire lifecycles in fresh water. These fresh water species are found in disjunct tropical regions of South America ("Colomesus asellus"), Africa (six "Tetraodon" species) and Southeast Asia ("Auriglobus", "Carinotetraodon", "Dichotomyctere", "Leiodon" and "Pao"). The puffer's unique and distinctive natural defenses help compensate for its slow locomotion. It moves by combining pectoral, dorsal, anal, and caudal fins. This makes it highly maneuverable, but very slow, and therefore a comparatively easy predation target. Its tail fin is mainly used as a


title: Tetraodontidae content: rudder, but it can be used for a sudden evasive burst of speed that shows none of the care and precision of its usual movements. The puffer's excellent eyesight, combined with this speed burst, is the first and most important defense against predators. The pufferfish's secondary defense mechanism, used if successfully pursued, is to fill its extremely elastic stomach with water (or air when outside the water) until it is much larger and almost spherical in shape. Even if they are not visible when the puffer is not inflated, all puffers have pointed spines, so a hungry predator may suddenly


title: Tetraodontidae content: find itself facing an unpalatable, pointy ball rather than a slow, tasty fish. Predators which do not heed this warning (or which are "lucky" enough to catch the puffer suddenly, before or during inflation) may die from choking, and predators that do manage to swallow the puffer may find their stomachs full of tetrodotoxin (TTX), making puffers an unpleasant, possibly lethal, choice of prey. This neurotoxin is found primarily in the ovaries and liver, although smaller amounts exist in the intestines and skin, as well as trace amounts in muscle. It does not always have a lethal effect on large


title: Tetraodontidae content: predators, such as sharks, but it can kill humans. Larval pufferfish are chemically defended by the presence of TTX on the surface of skin, which causes predators to spit them out. Not all puffers are necessarily poisonous; the flesh of the northern puffer is not toxic (a level of poison can be found in its viscera) and it is considered a delicacy in North America. "Takifugu oblongus", for example, is a "fugu" puffer that is not poisonous, and toxin level varies wildly even in fish that are. A puffer's neurotoxin is not necessarily as toxic to other animals as it


title: Tetraodontidae content: is to humans, and puffers are eaten routinely by some species of fish, such as lizardfish and tiger sharks. Also, Japanese fish farmers have grown nonpoisonous puffers by controlling their diets. Puffers are able to move their eyes independently, and many species can change the color or intensity of their patterns in response to environmental changes. In these respects, they are somewhat similar to the terrestrial chameleon. Although most puffers are drab, many have bright colors and distinctive markings, and make no attempt to hide from predators. This is likely an example of honestly signaled aposematism. Many marine puffers have


title: Tetraodontidae content: a pelagic, or open-ocean, life stage. Spawning occurs after males slowly push females to the water surface or join females already present. The eggs are spherical and buoyant. Hatching occurs after roughly four days. The fry are tiny, but under magnification have a shape usually reminiscent of a pufferfish. They have a functional mouth and eyes, and must eat within a few days. Brackish-water puffers may breed in bays in a similar manner to marine species, or may breed more similarly to the freshwater species, in cases where they have moved far enough upriver. Reproduction in freshwater species varies quite


title: Tetraodontidae content: a bit. The dwarf puffers court with males following females, possibly displaying the crests and keels unique to this subgroup of species. After the female accepts his advances, she will lead the male into plants or another form of cover, where she can release eggs for fertilization. The male may help her by rubbing against her side. This has been observed in captivity, and they are the only commonly captive-spawned puffer species. Target-group puffers have also been spawned in aquariums, and follow a similar courting behavior, minus the crest/keel display. However, eggs are laid on a flat piece of slate


title: Tetraodontidae content: or other smooth, hard material, to which they adhere. The male will guard them until they hatch, carefully blowing water over them regularly to keep the eggs healthy. His parenting is finished when the young hatch, and the fry are on their own. Information on breeding of specific species is very limited. "T. nigroviridis", the green-spotted puffer, has recently been artificially spawned under captive conditions. It is believed to spawn in bays in a similar manner to saltwater species, as their sperm was found to be motile only at full marine salinities, but actual wild breeding has never been observed.


title: Tetraodontidae content: "Xenopterus naritus" has been reported to be first breed artificially in Sarawak, Northwestern Borneo in June 2016, which the main purpose is for development in aquaculture of the species. In 2012, males of the species "Torquigener albomaculosus" were documented carving large geometric, circular structures in the seabed sand in Amami Ōshima, Japan. The structures serve to attract females and provide a safe place for them to lay their eggs. A pufferfish's diet can vary depending on its environment. Traditionally, their diet consists mostly of algae and small invertebrates. They can survive on a completely vegetarian diet if their environment is


title: Tetraodontidae content: lacking resources, but prefer an omnivorous food selection. Larger species of pufferfish are able to use their beak-like front teeth to break open clams, mussels, as well as other shellfish. Some species of pufferfish have also been known to enact various hunting techniques ranging from ambush to open water hunting. The tetraodontids have been estimated to diverge from diodontids between 89 and 138 million years ago. The four major clades diverged during the Cretaceous between 80 and 101 million years ago. The oldest known pufferfish genus is "Eotetraodon", from the Lutetian epoch of Middle Eocene Europe, with fossils found in


title: Tetraodontidae content: Monte Bolca and the Caucasus Mountains. The Monte Bolca species, "E. pygmaeus", coexisted with several other tetraodontiforms, including an extinct species of diodontid, primitive boxfish ("Proaracana" and "Eolactoria"), and other, totally extinct forms, such as "Zignoichthys" and the spinacanthids. The extinct genus, "Archaeotetraodon" is known from Miocene-aged fossils from Europe. Pufferfish can be lethal if not served properly. Puffer poisoning usually results from consumption of incorrectly prepared puffer soup, "fugu chiri", or occasionally from raw puffer meat, "sashimi fugu". While "chiri" is much more likely to cause death, "sashimi fugu" often causes intoxication, light-headedness, and numbness of the lips, and


title: Tetraodontidae content: is often eaten for this reason. Pufferfish tetrodotoxin deadens the tongue and lips, and induces dizziness and vomiting, followed by numbness and prickling over the body, rapid heart rate, decreased blood pressure, and muscle paralysis. The toxin paralyzes the diaphragm muscle and stops the person who has ingested it from breathing. People who live longer than 24 hours typically survive, although possibly after a coma lasting several days. The source of tetrodotoxin in puffers has been a matter of debate, but it is increasingly accepted that bacteria in the fish's intestinal tract are the source. Saxitoxin, the cause of paralytic


title: Tetraodontidae content: shellfish poisoning and red tide, can also be found in certain puffers. In September 2012, the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources in the Philippines issued a warning not to eat puffer fish, locally known as "butete", after local fishermen died upon consuming puffer fish for dinner. The warning indicated that puffer fish toxin is 100 times more potent than cyanide. Pufferfish, called "pakpao" in Thailand, are usually consumed by mistake. They are often cheaper than other fish, and because they contain inconsistent levels of toxins between fish and season, there is little awareness or monitoring of the danger. Consumers


title: Tetraodontidae content: are regularly hospitalized and some even die from the poisoning. Cases of neurological symptoms, including numbness and tingling of the lips and mouth, have been reported to rise after the consumption of puffers caught in the area of Titusville, Florida, U.S. The symptoms generally resolve within hours to days, although one affected individual required intubation for 72 hours. As a result, Florida banned the harvesting of puffers from certain bodies of water. Treatment is mainly supportive and consists of intestinal decontamination with gastric lavage and activated charcoal, and life-support until the toxin is metabolized. Case reports suggest anticholinesterases such as


title: Tetraodontidae content: edrophonium may be effective. Tetraodontidae The Tetraodontidae are a family of primarily marine and estuarine fish of the order Tetraodontiformes. The family includes many familiar species which are variously called pufferfish, puffers, balloonfish, blowfish, blowies, bubblefish, globefish, swellfish, toadfish, toadies, honey toads, sugar toads, and sea squab. They are morphologically similar to the closely related porcupinefish, which have large external spines (unlike the thinner, hidden spines of the Tetraodontidae, which are only visible when the fish has puffed up). The scientific name refers to the four large teeth, fused into an upper and lower plate, which are used for crushing


title: Precambrian content: the Hadean (~4.6—4 billion), Archean (4—2.5 billion), and Proterozoic (2.5 billion—541 million) eons. (There is only one other eon: the Phanerozoic, 541 million-present.) "Precambrian" is still used by geologists and paleontologists for general discussions not requiring the more specific eon names. , the United States Geological Survey considers the term informal, lacking a stratigraphic rank. A specific date for the origin of life has not been determined. Carbon found in 3.8 billion-year-old rocks (Archean eon) from islands off western Greenland may be of organic origin. Well-preserved microscopic fossils of bacteria older than 3.46 billion years have been found in Western


title: "Pierre Teilhard de Chardin" content: of the works of Fr. Teilhard de Chardin and his followers" (AAS, 6 August 1962). The Diocese of Rome on 30 September 1963 required Catholic booksellers in Rome to withdraw his works as well as those that supported his views. Teilhard died in New York City, where he was in residence at the Jesuit Church of St. Ignatius Loyola, Park Avenue. On 15 March 1955, at the house of his diplomat cousin Jean de Lagarde, Teilhard told friends he hoped he would die on Easter Sunday. On the evening of Easter Sunday, 10 April 1955, during an animated discussion at


title: Panspermia content: the molecules from the ionizing effect of ultraviolet radiation emitted by stars. A 2008 analysis of C/C isotopic ratios of organic compounds found in the Murchison meteorite indicates a non-terrestrial origin for these molecules rather than terrestrial contamination. Biologically relevant molecules identified so far include uracil, an RNA nucleobase, and xanthine. These results demonstrate that many organic compounds which are components of life on Earth were already present in the early Solar System and may have played a key role in life's origin. In August 2009, NASA scientists identified one of the fundamental chemical building-blocks of life (the amino acid


title: "Pope Pius XII" content: the formation of a future Croatian state. Pius XII elevated Aloysius Stepinac—a Croatian archbishop convicted of collaborating with the Ustaše by the newly established Yugoslav Communist regime—to the cardinalate. Phayer agrees that Stepinac's was a "show trial", but states "the charge that he [Pius XII] supported the Ustaša regime was, of course, true, as everyone knew", and that "if Stepinac had responded to the charges against him, his defense would have inevitably unraveled, exposing the Vatican's support of the genocidal Pavelić." Throughout 1942, the Yugoslav government in exile sent letters of protest to Pius XII requesting him to use all


title: Prague content: filmed in Prague. Many Indian films have also been filmed in the city including "Yuvraaj", "Drona" and "Rockstar". Early 2000s europop hit "Something" by "Lasgo" was filmed at the central train station in Prague. Video games set in Prague include ", Indiana Jones and the Emperor's Tomb, , , , Still Life, " and ". With the growth of low-cost airlines in Europe, Prague has become a popular weekend city destination allowing tourists to visit its many museums and cultural sites as well as try its famous Czech beers and hearty cuisine. The city has many buildings by renowned architects,


title: Pompey content: old ways and be softened by a change of place, new customs and a gentler way of life. In Appian's account, Pompey went to Cilicia expecting to have to undertake sieges of rock-bound citadels. However, he did not have to. His reputation and the magnitude of his preparations provoked panic and the pirates surrendered, hoping to be treated leniently because of this. They gave up large quantities of weapons, ships and ship building materials. Pompey destroyed the material, took away the ships and sent some of the captured pirates back to their countries. He recognised that they had undertaken piracy


title: Pasta content: Pasta Pasta () is a staple food of traditional Italian cuisine, with the first reference dating to 1154 in Sicily. Also commonly used to refer to the variety of dishes made with it, "pasta" is typically made from an unleavened dough of a durum wheat flour mixed with water or eggs, and formed into sheets or various shapes, then cooked by boiling or baking. Some pastas can be made using rice flour in place of wheat flour to yield a different taste and texture, or for those who wish to avoid products containing gluten. Pastas may be divided into two


title: Pasta content: broad categories: dried ("pasta secca") and fresh ("pasta fresca"). Most dried pasta is produced commercially via an extrusion process, although it can be produced in the home. Fresh pasta is traditionally produced by hand, sometimes with the aid of simple machines. Fresh pastas available in grocery stores are produced commercially by large-scale machines. Both dried and fresh pastas come in a number of shapes and varieties, with 310 specific forms known by over 1300 documented names. In Italy, the names of specific pasta shapes or types often vary by locale. For example, the pasta form "cavatelli" is known by 28


title: Pasta content: different names depending upon the town and region. Common forms of pasta include long and short shapes, tubes, flat shapes or sheets, miniature shapes for soup, those meant to be filled or stuffed, and specialty or decorative shapes. As a category in Italian cuisine, both fresh and dried pastas are classically used in one of three kinds of prepared dishes: as "pasta asciutta" (or "pastasciutta"), cooked pasta is plated and served with a complementary side sauce or condiment; a second classification of pasta dishes is "pasta in brodo", in which the pasta is part of a soup-type dish. A third


title: Pasta content: category is "pasta al forno", in which the pasta is incorporated into a dish that is subsequently baked in the oven. Pasta dishes are generally simple, but individual dishes vary in preparation. Some pasta dishes are served as a small first course or for light lunches, such as pasta salads. Other dishes may be portioned larger and used for dinner. Pasta sauces similarly may vary in taste, color and texture. In terms of nutrition, cooked plain pasta is 31% carbohydrates (mostly starch), 6% protein, and low in fat, with moderate amounts of manganese, but pasta generally has low micronutrient content.


title: Pasta content: Pasta may be enriched or fortified, or made from whole grains. First attested in English in 1874, the word "pasta" comes from Italian "pasta", in turn from Latin "pasta" latinisation of the Greek παστά ("pasta") "barley porridge". In the 1st century AD writings of Horace, "lagana" (singular: "laganum") were fine sheets of fried dough and were an everyday foodstuff. Writing in the 2nd century Athenaeus of Naucratis provides a recipe for "lagana" which he attributes to the 1st century Chrysippus of Tyana: sheets of dough made of wheat flour and the juice of crushed lettuce, then flavoured with spices and


title: Pasta content: deep-fried in oil. An early 5th century cookbook describes a dish called "lagana" that consisted of layers of dough with meat stuffing, an ancestor of modern-day "lasagna". However, the method of cooking these sheets of dough does not correspond to our modern definition of either a fresh or dry pasta product, which only had similar basic ingredients and perhaps the shape. The first concrete information concerning pasta products in Italy dates from the 13th or 14th century. Historians have noted several lexical milestones relevant to pasta, none of which changes these basic characteristics. For example, the works of the 2nd


title: Pasta content: century AD Greek physician Galen mention "itrion", homogeneous compounds made of flour and water. The Jerusalem Talmud records that "itrium", a kind of boiled dough, was common in Palestine from the 3rd to 5th centuries AD. A dictionary compiled by the 9th century Arab physician and lexicographer Isho bar Ali defines "itriyya", the Arabic cognate, as string-like shapes made of semolina and dried before cooking. The geographical text of Muhammad al-Idrisi, compiled for the Norman King of Sicily Roger II in 1154 mentions "itriyya" manufactured and exported from Norman Sicily: One form of "itriyya" with a long history is "laganum"


title: Pasta content: (plural "lagana"), which in Latin refers to a thin sheet of dough, and gives rise to Italian "lasagna". In North Africa, a food similar to pasta, known as couscous, has been eaten for centuries. However, it lacks the distinguishing malleable nature of pasta, couscous being more akin to droplets of dough. At first, dry pasta was a luxury item in Italy because of high labor costs; durum wheat semolina had to be kneaded for a long time. There is a legend of Marco Polo importing pasta from China which originated with the "Macaroni Journal", published by an association of food


title: Pasta content: industries with the goal of promoting pasta in the United States. Rustichello da Pisa writes in his "Travels" that Marco Polo described a food similar to "lagana". Jeffrey Steingarten asserts that Arabs introduced pasta in the Emirate of Sicily in the ninth century, mentioning also that traces of pasta have been found in ancient Greece and that Jane Grigson believed the Marco Polo story to have originated in the 1920s or 30s in an advertisement for a Canadian spaghetti company. In Greek mythology, it is believed that the god Hephaestus invented a device that made strings of dough. This was


title: Pasta content: the earliest reference to a pasta maker. In the 14th and 15th centuries, dried pasta became popular for its easy storage. This allowed people to store pasta on ships when exploring the New World. A century later, pasta was present around the globe during the voyages of discovery. The invention of the first tomato sauces dates from the late 18th century: the first written record of pasta with tomato sauce can be found in the 1790 cookbook "L'Apicio Moderno" by Roman chef Francesco Leonardi. Before tomato sauce was introduced, pasta was eaten dry with the fingers; the liquid sauce demanded


title: Pasta content: the use of a fork. At the beginning of the 17th century, Naples had rudimentary machines for producing pasta, later establishing the kneading machine and press, making pasta manufacturing cost-effective. In 1740, a license for the first pasta factory was issued in Venice. During the 1800s, water mills and stone grinders were used to separate semolina from the bran, initiating expansion of the pasta market. By 1867, Buitoni Company in Sansepolcro, Tuscany became an established pasta manufacturer. During the early 1900s, artificial drying and extrusion processes enabled greater variety of pasta preparation and larger volumes for export, beginning a period


title: Pasta content: called "The Industry of Pasta". Using tomato sauce to give pasta its flavour was revolutionary since it was originally eaten plain. The consumption of pasta has changed over time; while once a small, simple item, it is now often eaten in much larger portions and as part of complex, sophisticated dishes. Factors such as low prices and ease of cooking contribute to the growing popularity of this staple item. The art of pasta making and the devotion to the food as a whole has evolved since pasta was first conceptualized. It is estimated that Italians eat over of pasta per


title: Pasta content: person, per year, easily beating Americans, who eat about per person. Pasta is so beloved in Italy that individual consumption exceeds the average production of wheat of the country; thus Italy frequently imports wheat for pasta making. In contemporary society pasta is ubiquitous, and individuals can find a variety of types in local supermarkets. With the worldwide demand for this staple food, pasta is now largely mass-produced in factories and only a tiny proportion is crafted by hand. Pasta was originally solely a part of Italian and European cuisine. With an increase in popularity on a worldwide scale, pasta has


title: Pasta content: crossed international borders and is now a popular form of fast food and a staple in North America and elsewhere. This is due to the great amount of Italian immigration into Canada and the United States around the beginning of the 20th century. Similarly an immense immigration of Italians into South Africa ensured that spaghetti with meatballs became an essential part of South African cuisine. Since at least the time of Cato's "De Agri Cultura", basic pasta dough has been made mostly of wheat flour or semolina, with durum wheat used predominantly in the South of Italy and soft wheat


title: Pasta content: in the North. Regionally other grains have been used, including those from barley, buckwheat, rye, rice, and maize, as well as chestnut and chickpea flours. To address needs of people affected by gluten-related disorders (such as coeliac disease, non-celiac gluten sensitivity and wheat allergy sufferers), some recipes use rice or maize for making pasta. Grain flours may also be supplemented with cooked potatoes. Other additions to the basic flour-liquid mixture may include vegetable purees such as spinach or tomato, mushrooms, cheeses, herbs, spices and other seasonings. While pastas are, most typically, made from unleavened doughs, the use of yeast-raised doughs


title: Pasta content: are also known for at least nine different pasta forms. Additives in dried, commercially sold pasta include vitamins and minerals that are lost from the durum wheat endosperm during milling. They are added back to the semolina flour once it is ground. Micronutrients added may include niacin (vitamin B3), riboflavin (vitamin B2), folate, thiamine (vitamin B1), and ferrous iron. Fresh pasta is usually locally made with fresh ingredients unless it is destined to be shipped, in which case consideration is given to the spoilage rates of the desired ingredients such as eggs or herbs. Furthermore, fresh pasta is usually made


title: Pasta content: with a mixture of eggs and all-purpose flour or “00” low-gluten flour. Since it contains eggs, it is more tender compared to dried pasta and only takes about half the time to cook. Delicate sauces are preferred for fresh pasta in order to let the pasta take front stage. Fresh pastas do not expand in size after cooking; therefore, of pasta are needed to serve four people generously. Fresh egg pasta is generally cut into strands of various widths and thicknesses depending on which pasta is to be made (e.g. fettuccine, pappardelle, and lasagne). It is best served with meat,