This Chemical Is So Hot It Destroys Nerve Fibers--in a Good Way

Resiniferatoxin is 10,000 times hotter than the hottest pepper, and has features that make it promising as a painkiller of last resort.

“So when you put hot pepper on your tongue and it feels like it's burning, it's not because your tongue is on fire,” says Tony Yaksh, an anesthesiologist and pharmacologist at UC San Diego who’s studied RTX. “It's simply activating the same sensory axons that would have been activated if your tongue had been on fire.”