If you're heading out to an Occupation today AND you're a fan of tasty, tasty chili peppers, you'll want to read
Deborah Blum's
"About Pepper" essay in Scientific American.
The reason pepper-spray ends up on the Scoville chart is that – you probably guessed this - it’s literally derived from pepper chemistry, the compounds that make habaneros so much more formidable than the comparatively wimpy bells. Those compounds are called capsaicins and – in fact – pepper spray is more formally called Oleoresin Capsicum or OC Spray.
But we’ve taken to calling it pepper spray, I think, because that makes it sound so much more benign than it really is, like something just a grade or so above what we might mix up in a home kitchen. The description hints maybe at that eye-stinging effect that the cook occasionally experiences when making something like a jalapeno-based salsa, a little burn, nothing too serious.
Until you look it up on the Scoville scale and remember, as toxicologists love to point out, that the dose makes the poison.
(via @chaplinscourage)
Julio writes, “That’s the question that we, the people of Catalonia, will answer on 1 October, day of the referendum for independence. Some of us didn’t want independence from Spain 15-20 years ago, but the central government (specially with the right-wing Partido Popular at the helm) has orchestrated a political and judicial prosecution of free […]
Zeynep Tufekci (previously) is one of the most consistently astute, nuanced commenters on networked politics and revolutions, someone who’s been literally on the front lines around the world. In a new book called Twitter and Tear Gas: The Power and Fragility of Networked Protest, she sets out a thesis that (as the title suggests) explores […]
Doubtless you’ve laughed at the ideological war between the Judean People’s Front and the People’s Front of Judea. I laughed along with you: having grown up in politics, I know firsthand about the enmities that fester between groups that should be allies — groups whose differences can only be parsed after months of study, but who are seemingly more at odds with one another than their obvious political opponents on the “other side” of the debate.
Our world is a colorful one, and when it comes time to repaint the house or create a new design, many of us look to our surroundings for inspiration. However, matching colors from the outside world to our canvas isn’t the most precise process when we’re just eyeballing it. The Nix Pro Color Sensor removes the […]
You probably remember the Twisty Glass Blunt since we love to write about it. And you may also remember its little buddy, the Twisty Glass Mini. Well, today we’ve got a fun surprise that isn’t so little. Less isn’t always more, and on those days when you need to decompress with a good smoke, the Twisty XL […]
Another year, another iteration of Samsung’s Galaxy smartphone—except this time around Samsung sought to redefine what a smartphone can do completely. Boasting a 6.2″ Quad HD+ Super AMOLED (2960×1440) infinity display, and an elite 10nm 64-bit Octa-Core Processor with 6GB RAM, the S9+ is an absolute powerhouse with a price tag to match. However, you […]
