The sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas) is a dicotyledonous plant that belongs to the family Convolvulaceae. Its large, starchy, sweet-tasting, tuberous roots are an important root vegetable. The young leaves and shoots are sometimes eaten as greens. Of the approximately 50 genera and more than 1,000 species of Convolvulaceae, I. batatas is the only crop plant of major importance—some others are used locally, but many are actually poisonous. The sweet potato is only distantly related to the potato (Solanum tuberosum).

Although the soft, orange sweet potato is often mislabeled a yam in parts of North America, the sweet potato is botanically very distinct from a genuine yam, which is native to Africa and Asia and belongs to the monocot family Dioscoreaceae. To prevent confusion, the United States Department of Agriculture requires sweet potatoes labeled as "yams" to be labeled also as "sweet potatoes".

The genus Ipomoea that contains the sweet potato also includes several garden flowers called morning glories, though that term is not usually extended to Ipomoea batatas. Some cultivars of Ipomoea batatas are grown as ornamental plants; the name "tuberous morning glory" may be used in a horticultural context.

Jessica Rose "Jessie" James (born April 12, 1988) is an American country pop singer and songwriter. Having auditioned for and being rejected by most of the country labels in Nashville, Tennessee at age fifteen, James began working on refining her craft with Karla Wallace of Yellow Dog Records. One of her songs attracted the attention of Mercury Records which offered her a recording contract. She released her debut album Jessie James in 2009.

James was born April 12, 1988 in Vicenza, Italy. She began singing at the age of two and won her first talent contest in Baker, Louisiana at the age of nine singing "I Want to Be a Cowboy's Sweetheart". She told her mother about the show after hearing about it from her grandmother. By then, she had already been writing songs on a plastic guitar and performed at SeaWorld and a Republican Convention. James relocated to Warner Robins, Georgia in 2000. At age fifteen, she made weekly trips to Nashville to hone her songwriting. She had auditioned and was turned down by almost all the country labels in Nashville, with one label head offering a development deal instead.

Sarah Carey is a former Esat Telecom employee and former columnist for The Sunday Timesand The Irish Times. She is currently a radio presenter on Newstalk and has presented for TV3. She resigned from The Irish Times in March 2011 after an appearance on national television during which she defended leaking information from the Moriarty Tribunal about political donations from Denis O'Brien to Irish political parties.

Carey has a degree in History from Trinity College, Dublin and a post-graduate diploma in Business Studies from the Michael Smurfit Business School in University College Dublin. She has performed freelance PR/marketing work for a number of companies and the political party Fine Gael. She has also worked for Esat Digifone.

In 2002, she began writing the blog GUBU, "An Irish woman’s social, political and domestic commentary". Then Sunday Times Irish Editor Fiona McHugh, offered Carey a column after reading the blog. The Sunday Times column ended when she started writing a weekly opinion column for The Irish Times in 2008. The blog also ended in 2008.