What’s the deal with spicy food? How is it hot — and yet also not? And how does it make masochists of so many otherwise non-masochistic people? Spicy food brings an intimate pain that, for some, just hurts so good. The pain of spiciness, a.k.a. piquance, comes from the effects of a little molecule called capsaicin (pronounced “CAP-suh-sin”), found in chili peppers of the genus Capsicum. Capsaicin also explains why spicy foods make you poop, why spicy food is good for you (sometimes), and why spicy food is bad for you (othertimes).

Dreams…what are they good for? Our dreams can be a gateway to adventure, wisdom, clarity, the sacred, our inner genius. They can lead us past our fears, to our desires, into fantasy worlds and back out again on a path strewn with the self-organizing debris of the imagination. Dreams clearly rock. But is dreaming a lost art? Some say humanity has finally put its naive faith in the truths and meaningfulness of dreams aside for a more straightlaced, science-based worldview.

OMG 5G Internet is coming and it promises to fulfill all our communication dreams with truly seamless connectivity and practically unlimited data. 5G’s going to make Big Data into Fast Data and Ubiquitous Data, connecting and automating everything. Soon the very idea of an Internet-free space will seem hopelessly antiquated, and tolerance for slow video buffering will drop to historic lows. The way marketers talk about the much-anticipated “5G,” or Fifth Generation, of mobile wireless technologies (scheduled for mass rollouts by 2020), you could be forgiven for thinking there are no drawbacks at all associated with unprecedented data density.

At the beginning of 2017, the website 24⁄7 Wall St. released a list of the dozen most hated corporations in America. Now, this is a field where the competition is incredibly heated. There are so many good candidates, it’s hard to narrow it down to the most deserving winners of all. But a gamely effort was made and thoughtful selections were produced based on the evaluations of consumers, employees, and experts.

Did you know that certain kinds of charcoal can be used as a soil amendment to revitalize exhausted and polluted land? And that doing so on a global scale could seriously jumpstart efforts to claw back the atmospheric greenhouse gases that are driving global warming? And that one of the neat side effects would be massive increases in the otherwise dismal nutritional quality of the food we all consume? Heterotrophs of Earth, prepare to reduce your intake of multivitamins and dietary supplements.

There’s no question cannabis can ease the pain and suffering of cancer patients, especially those undergoing a punishing regime of chemo and/or radiation. Even the medical establishment admits as much. But the Internet is bubbling over with testimonials that take the claim much further: Not only is the green goddess Mary Jane a powerful medicine in her own right, but there may be no better treatment for the world’s most effective killer.

Colorful charity donation bins – you might’ve seen them pop up overnight on a block near you. They are unattended, Redbox-sized depositories placed in parking lots, by fill stations, outside strip malls. You can drive up in your car and load your second-hand clothes and shoes into a large steel drawer on the front of the bin. Presumably, someone will pick the stuff up later. Painted bright green, yellow, blue, or red, the donation boxes are printed with information about the numerous causes and projects your donation will supposedly benefit.

Do you have unfulfilled aromatherapy needs? Do you suffer from aches and pains that defy conventional pharmaceuticals? Are you looking for creative solutions to forehead wrinkles? Tuberculosis? Boring breakfasts and unresponsive politicians? Well you are in luck, my friend. Thanks to a budding partnership between high technology, primitivist nostalgia, and old-fashioned greed, now anyone can access the immense therapeutic potential of Essential Oils. “EOs” are the perfect all-natural panacea for the nature-challenged citizen of the modern world.

These days, it’s hard not to conclude Mother Nature is deeply pissed off at humanity. The very elements seem to have declared war on us. Wind, Water, Earth, and Fire routinely converge in ecological catastrophes around the globe, bringing whole populations to their knees as they struggle to catch up to the new normal of a changing climate. Here, we spotlight the intrigues of Fire within the fray. Fire plays an important role in global carbon cycling, putting it on the front lines of climate change wherever it occurs.

Culture. That thing that makes one person’s beloved treat another’s source of botulism. Of course, some cultures are more daring than others when it comes to sampling life’s ‘exotic’ side. Learning what shocking culinary traditions people around the world have developed in the fullness of time can help shine a light on the fragility of our own assumptions about what’s good, what’s healthy, and even what’s safe to eat — and under what conditions.