Chili Power

A chemical from chilli peppers may be able to kill pain without affecting touch or movement, according to a BBC report.

This might in theory mean a woman in labour could have an epidural without losing the ability to move her legs, or the sensation of her baby being born.

Conventional local anaesthetics affect all nerve cells.

But the researchers Harvard team, writing in Nature, said that with capsaicin, the chilli chemical, they can target just pain receptors.

However, a UK expert said it might be difficult to inject it safely.

Certainly the idea of 5 cc of Tabasco shot into your ham sounds excruciating.

Xmas Shorts

On Barack Obama, "Black" hope: As pointed out in the National Review in April, 2000, "the United States is the only country in the world in which a white woman can give birth to a black baby but a black woman cannot give birth to a white baby."

Those Stupid Republicans: Incoming Democratic chairman of the U.S. House Intelligence Committee Silvestre Reyes doesn’t know the difference between Sunnis and Shi’ites. Or what Hezbollah is.

Those Stupid Republicans, Part II: Trent Lott, the veteran Republican senator from Mississippi, said only last September that “It’s hard for Americans, all of us, including me, to understand what’s wrong with these people.”

“Why do they kill people of other religions because of religion?” wondered Lott, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, after a meeting with Bush.

“Why do they hate the Israelis and despise their right to exist? Why do they hate each other? Why do Sunnis kill Shiites? How do they tell the difference?

“They all look the same to me,” Lott said.

A Different Guide

This is a dose of welcome humour in the developmenet debate, thanks to African Christian blog Two & Two Makes 5.