On Tue, Oct 18, 2011 at 11:43:52AM +0530, Deepa Mohan wrote: > > Um ... why would anyone expect a professor of _horticulture_ to have > > any real expertise in what would or would not kill a _human_? > > > > This ties into what Ben Goldacre says in Bad Science that, for the > > media, science is authoritative sounding pronouncements made by men in > > white coats.
To be fair, oral LD50 for capsaicin is 42.7 mg/kg in mice. Assuming human primates fare the same, half a gram of pure capsaicin taken orally should be enough to kill you. Interestingly enough, resiniferatoxin is 10^3 as potent as capsaicin http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resiniferatoxin Too bad http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resin_spurge probably tastes bad. > > Theoretically....I could propound many more theories more bizarre than > this...once again, I protest at the "could be/might be" theories parading as > scientific research. -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org";>leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE
