Surgeons use peppers to ease surgery pain

Bite into a hot pepper and what do you feel? Pain. But if you get enough of that heat in your mouth, you'll eventually notice that you have numbness as well. That's because the chemical that causes that pain interacts with nerve cells in an unusual way. Surgeons in California have been experimenting with the chemical -- called capsaicin -- to see if it can relieve pain following surgery.

Using special, purified capsaicin (don't go squirting pepper juice into cuts and scrapes at home just yet), surgeons are trying to create a pain reliever that can last for weeks after surgery. You can read all about the science behind these experiments here. Peppers for pain relief...what will they think of next?