Forged by Wales horticulturalist Mike Smith, the red- orange, fingernail- sized fruit is the unintentional product of a trial of a new performance- boosting plant food developed by Nottingham Trent University. Smith says the ferocious fruit is the spiciest on the planet, just over 1. Carolina reaper—the current record holder. That’s pretty fiery, but despite what much of the media coverage of this new pepper has claimed, the Dragon’s Breath is not lethally hot. Smith had the pepper tested and claims it registers 2. Scoville heat units (SHUs), which, if verified by the folks at Guinness, would be a world record for heat. 50 Internet Memes that Have Won Our Hearts Viral humor, bizarre curiosities, and infectious storytelling Share Pin Email. List of those Lost Cartoons and TV Shows on DVD. Pass the time waiting in line with these funny customer service jokes. But in case blinding agony isn’t enough to dissuade a daredevil’s heart, the Daily Post, which was first to report on the pepper, includes an even graver warning paraphrased from the university: “.. It didn’t take long for the pepper’s alleged lethality to dominate the news coverage, burningits wayacrossthe Internet like actual dragon’s breath. As with all hot peppers, the Dragon’s Breath chili’s extreme heat is mainly the result of capsaicin, which tricks sensory neurons into telling the brain that they are literally burning. Eat enough of it, and you can experience more serious effects, like vomiting, abdominal pain and yes, even death—but only at high enough doses. A study in mice found the minimum lethal dose of capsaicin is 1. Since the average adult person weighs 5. Become a CBN partner and receive The Transforming Word: Verses to Overcome Fear and Experience Peace, our special DVD/CD gift to you. CBN Partners are making a. Not all hot peppers are created equal, and few are as unequal as the Dragon’s Breath chili—a new breed that may soon find itself atop the “world’s hottest. Popular Teacher Designed Activities: These are the most popular lesson plans and curriculum units accessed by teachers on the web site. If, as Smith contends, the Dragon’s Breath registers 2. Scoville heat units, it’d be nearly 1 million SHUs more intense than the Carolina reaper, which averages 1. The Scoville scale is based on dilution: 1,0. SHUs means that you have to dilute the extract from 1 gram of dried pepper 1,0. Pure capsaicin registers a staggering 1. SHUs. Scientists can convert between the amount of capsaicin per gram of dried pepper and SHUs; the Dragon’s Breath’s 2. SHUs translates to 0. Since hot peppers are ~8. Dragon’s Breath. So, to consume the minimum lethal dose of 5. For an habanero- sized pepper, which look twice as large as the fruits Smith created, that would be about 2. Realistically, it’s probably impossible to breed a pepper so spicy that just one could kill you with its heat. That’s because if we assume a hot pepper is around 1. You could potentially create a lethal single pepper if you bred one that is far larger and much hotter at the same time. A strain twice as hot as a Dragon’s Breath at the size of a bell pepper would theoretically do it, but is not likely biologically feasible. But what about that note about anaphylactic shock issued by the university? That’s just a standard medical warning. Anaphylactic shock occurs when allergic reactions go nuclear. There are tens of thousands of known allergens out there, any of which could potentially cause a life- threatening case of anaphylaxis in someone who is allergic. And yet, despite decades of study including injection trials, there are no published cases of capsaicin- induced anaphylaxis. 9781407416861 1407416863 The Woods, Harlan Coben, Carol Monda, David Chandler 9781436753203 1436753201 A Summer Flight (1911), Frederick Adelbert Bisbee. There’s an evolutionary arms race going on in the insect world. Except rather than fighting over weapons and weapons defenses, these beetles are evolving the. Capsaicin and similar chemicals are being explored as a way of reducing allergic responses. Peppers can carry other allergens, however. Spice allergies, including those to pepper- derived paprika and cayenne, do exist, but they are rare and due to pollen- like compounds, not capsaicin. There have also been severe allergic reactions to bell peppers, all of which means that doctors can’t rule out the possibility that someone could have an allergic reaction to the Dragon’s Breath. Similar warnings are common for any drug or supplement where anyone has had a serious reaction, including Advil and Aspirin. In the end, the only people who have to worry about anaphylaxis from Dragon’s Breath are those who are already allergic to peppers or pepper- derived spices of any kind, and they have as much to fear from a jalape. Smith, for his part, believes the Dragon’s Breath may wind up serving a beneficial medical purpose, as the potent oils from its flesh could be used as anaesthetic. So chiliheads out there—with their iron stomachs and appetite for pain—can rejoice in knowing that the Dragon’s Breath is not especially lethal. Not that they will get their chance to experience the cripplingly- hot flesh of this pepper anytime soon. The only way to see the peppers for now is to attend the Royal Horticultural Society’s Chelsea Flower Show in the U. Customer Service Jokes . Yes, okay, it was an e- mail, but it was a clever one and I hated to lose it. My cursor had frozen. I tried to shut the computer down, and it seized up altogether. Unsure of what else to do, I yanked the battery out. Unfortunately, Windows had been in the midst of a delicate and crucial undertaking. The next morning, when I turned my computer back on, it informed me that a file had been corrupted and Windows would not load. This was followed by some mysterious lines of code, which I took to be my computer saying “Serves you right, careless pea brain” in its native tongue. More graciously, it offered to repair itself by using the Windows Setup CD. I opened the special drawer where I keep CDs that I have no intention of ever using. There was an IKEA how- to CD, which featured young Swedes assembling kitchen cabinets with nothing but a sardine can key and untrammeled wholesomeness. Mostly, there were CDs of music that my friends are always burning for me, unbidden, because they think I’ll enjoy them. But no Windows CD. I was forced to call the computer company’s Global Support Center. My call was answered by a woman in some unnamed, far- off land. I find it vexing to make small talk with someone when I don’t know what continent they’re standing on. Suppose I were to comment on the beautiful weather we’ve been having when there was a monsoon at the other end of the phone? So I got right to the point.“My computer is telling me a file is corrupted and it wants to fix itself, but I don’t have the Windows Setup CD.”“So you’re having a problem with your Windows Setup CD.” She had apparently been dozing and, having come to just as the sentence ended, was attempting to cover for her inattention. I recognized the technique from a thousand breakfast conversations.“We took that rug in weeks ago. Should I call the cleaners?”“No, thanks. I’m good.”It quickly became clear that the woman was not a computer technician. Her job was to serve as a gatekeeper, a human shield for the techs, who were off in the back room, or possibly another far- off continent, playing cards and burning CDs for their friends. Her sole duty, as far as I could tell, was to raise global stress levels. To make me disappear, the woman gave me the phone number for Windows’ creator, Microsoft. This is like giving someone the phone number for, I don’t know, North America. Besides, the CD worked; I just didn’t have it. No matter how many times I repeated my story, we came back to the same place. She was unflappable and resolutely polite. When my voice hit a certain decibel, I was passed along, like a hot, irritable potato, to a technician.“You don’t have the Windows Setup CD, ma’am, because you don’t need it,” he explained cheerfully. Finally, he offered to walk me through the use of a different CD, one that would erase my entire system. A smart, helpful man dug out a Windows CD and told me it wouldn’t be a problem. An hour later, he called to let me know it was ready. I thanked him, and we chatted about the weather, which was the same outside my window as it was outside his.
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