Did anyone else see this article: "What's So Hot About Chili Peppers?" in the April Smithsonian Magazine? http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/41384227.html It's not your run-of-the-mill "here's a new hot pepper" article, either... the gist of it is a profile of an ecologist who is doing research into /why/ chiles are hot (not from a chemical perspective, but from the viewpoint of capsaicin as an evolutionary advantage). He's investigating the link between the presence of a fungal rot that is very closely associated with wild chile plants, and the level of capsaicin in the fruit - generally speaking, the more capsaicin the less fungus. Could our favorite alkaloid be a naturally-selected defense mechanism to preserve the fruit by making them unpalatable to natural enemies? And if so, what does that say about us? Jonathan