Up Next
Back to Show
Eons
How Chilis Got Spicy (and Why We Love the Burn)
Season 3
Episode 40
Today, chilis are the most widely cultivated spice crop in the world - grown everywhere from their native home in the Americas to Europe, Africa, and Asia. But how and why did chilis evolve this weird, fiery trick in the first place? And why did we learn to love that spicy burn?
Support Provided By
Season
10:46
Maybe there wasn’t just one so-called "cradle of humankind"?
10:18
How did such a strange plant like cannabis come to be in the first place?
9:34
We’re taking a look towards the deep future. After all, the story is far from over.
7:59
When did we start practicing medicine in its varied, complex forms?
9:11
For some, the rise of venomous elapid snakes was an almost apocalyptic catastrophe.
12:07
When you only have fossils, how do you know if a dinosaur is female or male?
11:57
What are animal-like fossils doing in rocks a billion years old?
9:41
Paranthropus lived alongside our ancestors. If we are still here, why aren’t they?
8:42
Exoskeleton fragments may have allowed microbes to sail the ocean and change the world.
10:45
Fire only exists only on Earth because fire can’t exist without life.
7:09
Turns out bats didn’t give us butterflies and we should be thanking bees and beans.
8:58
Graptolites show us how unpredictable the Silurian period really could be.