There’s a fungus among us chili fans—and some of the spicy peppers evolve their kick to repel it, a new study says.

Chili peppers develop piquant chemicals to thwart the harmful microbes long enough to give birds and other animals a chance to disperse the pepper seeds, helping the chilies to procreate, scientists found.

Chilis high in chemicals called capsaicinoids occur most in areas where the fungus can enter the peppers through holes bored by insects, and these chilies are hotter, said study author Joshua Tewksbury, a biologist at the University of Washington in Seattle. Read more…

According to John Roach

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Posted By: ashley | Aug 12th

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