India’s hot chili pepper grenade

By Michael Barclay - Thursday, April 8, 2010 - 0 Comments

The bhut jolokia is so potent it may be used for crowd control

Photograph by Gannon Anjo

Mustard gas, which was used extensively in the First World War, may be yellow and smell like mustard, but it’s not made from mustard seeds at all. (It’s comprised of carbon, sulfur, chlorine and hydrogen.) But when the Indian military talks about their new chili grenades, they are in fact talking about pepper weapons made from the bhut jolokia chili.

That plant long ago earned a spot in the Guinness World Records as the hottest chili in the world. The spiciness of chilies is weighted in Scoville units, which measure the amount of capsaicin—a nerve-stimulating chemical compound—in a pepper. A bell pepper has zero Scoville units; an jalapeno can have as many as 8,000; a Scotch bonnet can have 350,000. The bhut jolokia has over a million. A tiny fraction of one can be used in curries; it’s also recommended for stomach troubles. In 2007, farmers in the northeastern Indian state of Assam started spreading a bhut jolokia paste on fences to deter rampaging wild elephants from destroying homes and crops.

The Indian military has been working on weaponizing the seeds of the bhut jolokia for the past year, for use in traditional pepper spray jurisdictions such as crowd control and women’s personal safety. Their primary objective, however, is to develop a non-toxic grenade to use against insurgents and terrorists. R.B. Srivastava, of the military’s Defence Research and Development Organisation, told the BBC: “Its pungent smell will force the target victim to throw up and the eyes will burn like hell, but all without any long-term damage.”

The bombs’ effectiveness might not be universal. Though one chef died in 2008 after eating a whole bhut jolokia on a dare, there are several YouTube videos of people sweating through the experience. In 2007, a 26-year-old woman from Assam ate 51 bhut jolokias in two minutes to set a world record—and followed that up by rubbing them in her eyes. She survived.

The Queen's YouTube channel, John Hughes' pen pal, and a religious conversion reality TV show

By Lianne George - Friday, August 14, 2009 at 8:00 AM - 1 Comment

Newsmakers of the week

Whisky business
On Sunday, Queen Elizabeth II, 83, launched her new YouTube channel, where she will broadcast her 50th annual televised Christmas message this December. According to Buckingham Palace, “the Queen always keeps abreast with new ways of communicating with people.” Also available on the Royal Channel will be video clips of garden parties, state visits, and footage of a day in the life of Prince Charles. Some things about the royal family, however, are not for public consumption. According to the Daily Mail, the Norfolk Police has declined a request made under the Freedom of Information Act for details on how many officers receive a bottle of whisky from Her Majesty each year at Christmas time. The police department issued a ﬁve-page response defending its secrecy, claiming that in the wrong hands, this information could allow “domestic or foreign terrorists to establish the level of police protection afforded to royal residences.” It would reveal, however, that two of its ofﬁcers, Chief Insp. Dick Curtis and Sgt. P. Newby, had each receieved Christmas puddings from the Queen, valued at £13.

It worked for Bill
Hyun Jeong-eun, the head of Hyundai Group, one of South Korea’s most powerful conglomerates, ventured to North Korea this week to discuss “current issues” with officials and attempt to secure the release of one of her employees. The man, known only by his family name, Yoo, who was taken prisoner in March in the Northern border town of Kaesong, according to the BBC, allegedly for “undermining the North’s political system.” Hyun’s visit is said to have been prompted by the recent success of former U.S. president Bill Clinton in negotiating the release of two American journalists. Clinton is reported to have raised Yoo’s case during his visit with Kim Jong Il, but so far there is no reason to believe the North Korean dictator has any intention of releasing him. Continue…