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Throw out those bogus shopping tips about pepper size. Decades of deliberate planning created a less-hot jalapeño. It’s not just you: jalapeño peppers are less spicy and less predictable than ever before. As heat-seekers chase ever-fiercer varieties of pepper—Carolina reapers, scorpions, ghosts—the classic jalapeño is going in the opposite direction. And the long-term “de-spicification” of the jalapeño is a deliberate choice, not the product of a bad season of weather. This investigation began in my own kitchen. After months of buying heat-free jalapeños, I started texting chefs around Dallas to see if they were having the same experience. Many agreed....

On October 12th, the menu spotlights National Gumbo Day for food holidays. This heavily seasoned, stew-like dish fills us up on chilly fall days. #NationalGumboDay Originating in southern Louisiana during the 18th century, Gumbo typically consists of strongly-flavored stock with meat or shellfish, a thickener, and seasoned vegetables. The seasoned vegetables may include celery, bell peppers, and onions. In Cajun cuisine, the trio is known as the “holy trinity.” Most people serve Gumbo over rice. Gumbo also falls into different categories based on the following types of thickener used: African vegetable okra Choctaw spice filé powder (dried and ground sassafras...

For those who think financial fraud or circulating fake currencies is a modern day phenomenon, an ancient Roman coin mould on display at the Department of Archaeology, Museums and Heritage in the city is a startling revelation. The Roman coin mould, which is being displayed for the first time since its excavation in 1993, indicates that fake coins were in circulation around 19 to 20 centuries ago. The terracotta mould is among the most important objects displayed at the exhibition, apart from terracotta figurines, iron objects, bronze dies, stone beads. M S Krishnamurthy, a retired professor of Archaeology who led...

One way to understand the implications of the archaeological discoveries at Pattanam is to delve into the amazing wealth of data from the excavations at the lost Ptolemic-Roman port city of Berenike, on Egypt's Red Sea coast. During the Ptolemic-Roman period (third century B.C. to sixth century A.D), Berenike served as a key transit port between ancient Egypt and Rome on one side and the Red Sea-Indian Ocean regions, including South Arabia, East Africa, India and Sri Lanka, on the other. This ancient port city was well-connected by roads from the Nile that passed through the Eastern Desert of Egypt...

Pattanam, a small village located 25 km north of Kochi, is the new pilgrimage spot on the international archaeological map. This quiet place, archaeologists now confirm, was once the flourishing port known to the Romans as Muziris and sung in praise by the Tamil Sangam poets as Muciri. Every year since 2005, excavations have yielded artefacts, structures and even a canoe in one instance to confirm this conclusion. This year has also been productive for archaeologists. A figure of a pouncing lion carved in great detail on a semi precious stone and a bright micro metal object with intricate designs...

Archaeologists unearth Roman era artefacts in Kerala From our ANI Correspondent Pattanam (Kerala), Mar 23: What began as exploratory studies in Kerala, has thrown up enough artefacts and structures of two millennia old Indo-Roman trade era to delight archaeologists, who are looking for the lost port of Muziris. Archaeological teams in Pattanam village, near the port city of Kochi have been working on a site, which has yielded pottery, amphora, beads and other artefacts that are reminiscent of the ancient Romans. "The initial studies carried out in this region have amply indicated that there was a Roman presence. The Roman...

PATTANAM, India -- Pottery shards, beads, Roman copper coins, and ancient wine bottles litter the strata beneath this small seaside village in India's southern Kerala state. The 250 families, mostly agricultural laborers, who live in Pattanam, 260 kilometers (161 miles) north of Kerala's capital Thiruvananthapuram, find the objects pretty, but would rather dig up the ground and build larger homes. But according to archaeologists K.P. Shajan and V. Selvakumar, they may be destroying the remnants of Muziris, a well-documented trading port where Rome and India met almost 3,000 years ago. They say that, based on remote sensing data, a river...

Search for India's ancient city Roman amphora pieces abound in Pattanam Archaeologists working on India's south-west coast believe they may have solved the mystery of the location of a major port which was key to trade between India and the Roman Empire - Muziris, in the modern-day state of Kerala. For many years, people have been in search of the almost mythical port, known as Vanchi to locals. Much-recorded in Roman times, Muziris was a major centre for trade between Rome and southern India - but appeared to have simply disappeared. Now, however, an investigation by two archaeologists - KP...

Olympic gymnast Suni Lee said she was pepper sprayed after being targeted with anti-Asian slurs while visiting her hometown St. Paul, Minnesota a few weeks ago. The 18-year-old gold medalist said she was waiting for an Uber with a group of Asian-American friends when people in a car drove by yelling slurs including "ching chong" and saying they should "go back to where they came from," according to a profile in Pop Sugar. Lee said one passenger pepper sprayed her arm before the car drove away.

The sergeant major of the Army commended the second lieutenant whose December traffic stop prompted a lawsuit and the firing of a Virginia police officer for remaining cool as a pair of cops pointed their weapons at him. "Like many of you," Sergeant Major of the Army Michael Grinston tweeted Monday, "I was concerned by the video of [2nd Lt. Caron] Nazario's traffic stop in December. He represented himself and our Army well through his calm, professional response to the situation -- I'm very proud of him."

On February 27,* 1623, the Dutch East India Company beheaded twenty who had been waterboarded into confessing to a terrorist plot. As in modern times, this scenario originated with resource competition in the Muslim world … in this case, competition for spice, in Indonesia. European colonialism had pitted the Dutch East India Company against its British counterpart on the archipelago, both scrabbling after the lucrative trade in cloves and pepper, with garnishes of nutmeg, cinnamon, mace, and ginger. The two rival powers had, as we lay our story, recently come to a tense truce, dividing the commerce between them —...

Does anyone have any well informed suggestions for purchasing pepper spray for personal protection? Cost is not really an issue. I'm interested in brands that are most effective, easy to use without spraying it by mistake, reliable online vendors, etc.

As a deadly pandemic resurges in Washington, city leaders in Seattle are preparing for a weekend of probable Portland-level conflict between newly arrived federal agents, the Seattle Police Department, and...let's call them.................groups of demonstrators using different strategies to protest police brutality and a capitalist, white supremacist, colonialist patriarchy that relies on state violence to sustain itself. **SNIP** Durkan asked the city to "stand together to denounce" a group of protesters who busted up and lit fires within businesses and public buildings last Sunday afternoon and Wednesday night. She said this "relatively small" group is "bent on destruction," and referenced social...

Wrongful death case. Opioids and alcohol. “The motion hinged on the defendant's contention that law enforcement had failed to preserve bottles of alcohol, pill bottles and pills, and cash, and had failed to properly test F.E. for the presence of alcohol before determining the cause of his death.”

The false leftist narrative that suggests President Trump is a uniquely evil president because American Border Patrol agents hurled a few tear gas canisters at invading migrants continues its amusing collapse.Trump is hardly unique in using tear gas and pepper bombs to protect the border from an invading horde. Another American president, one hailed as a Messiah by the same people hurling scatalogical invective at Trump, did the same thing.His name was Barack Hussein Obama, and given the data published by The Daily Caller, he might have been known as the Gasser in Chief. Or maybe we might call him...

A progressive House candidate in Colorado has released a campaign ad in which he gets pepper sprayed in the face as part of his call to combat violence in schools. In the ad, posted last week, Levi Tillemann criticizes President Trump’s plan to arm teachers and school officials with firearms as a way to combat potential school shooters. “I’m calling on Congress to stop talking past each other and try something new,” Tilleman says in the ad. “Empower schools and teachers with non-lethal self-defense tools, like this can of pepper spray.”

Chillies could help fight breast cancer after scientists revealed the spicy ingredient causes diseased cells to self destruct. Capsaicin, the active component that gives chillies their trademark kick, can switch on specialised channels surrounding cancer cells causing them to die. Other cancers including colon, bone and pancreatic could also be killed off by the compound. However, capsaicin isn't effective if it's eaten, inhaled or injected, and researchers think it will only be effective as a pill attached to another drug that targets cancer cells. Scientists from Ruhr-University in Bochum, Germany, treated human samples of breast cancer cells with the hot...

Woman rescues red pepper Donald Trump from vegetarian chilli Then cruelly cooks him in Mexican-inspired dish It was just an ordinary evening for Janet Ayers in Portsmouth, preparing a vegetarian chilli for dinner. Ingredients included a trio of peppers – red, green and yellow – from Waitrose. So imagine Janet’s horror on slicing the red Capsicum to find the twisted and toothy mug of US president elect Donald Trump screaming at her. Incarnate. “It was going into a vegetarian chilli,” Ayers informed The Reg. “A discussion about Trump and the state of the world was going on while the veg...

Okay, your HIGH is really screwin’ up my LAWN!!! People are IDIOTS and will ingest ANYTHING to catch a BUZZ — the latest — FLOWER SEEDS?! That’s right, people are CHEWING the seeds of: Hawaiian Baby Woodrose Sleepy Grass Blue Morning Glory Because they’re LEGAL, and apparently, mimic the high of LSD.

VANCOUVER -- Police said they were looking for a suspect after more than a dozen Syrian refugees were pepper sprayed late Friday night in Vancouver. The attack happened outside the Muslim Association of Canada Centre during a "welcome night" event for newly-arrived Syrian refugees. City police said a crowd of men, women and children had gathered outside the MAC centre when a man wearing a white-hoodie apparently rode by on a bicycle and sprayed 15 to 30 people. Witnesses said several of those who were hit started coughing and complaining of burning eyes. Police said that a number of people...