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In the pаst few yeаrs, scientists hаve uncоvered what many peоple have always knоwn: food has the power to heal people. Take chile peppers, for instance. Although most people think of chile peppers as something that spices up their foods and burns their mouths, the truth is that chiles are loaded with good things. They have high levels of vitamins A and D, both of which promote the health of the immune system. Chiles also contain capsaicin, the element that makes them hot. Capsaicin is a colorless and odorless oil found in no other plant. Despite the fact that your tongue is in misery while you are eating chiles, the capsaicin soothes. The capsaicin releases chemicals in the brain called endorphins, natural pain-relievers. Once these endorphins are released into your blood, they relieve aches and pains. Additionally, eating chiles actually makes people feel cooler: eating a chile pepper causes your face and scalp to sweat and sweating helps you chill out. Consequently, eating chiles makes you feel very good. In addition to relieving pain and cooling you off, capsaicin is effective in treating head colds, flu, and asthma. In one study, capsaicin proved to be effective in preventing cancer cells from developing.
A In 2000, аn оil geоlоgist nаmed Sаdad I. Al Husseini made a surprising discovery. Husseini, who was the head of exploration and production for Aramco in Saudi Arabia, had questioned the oil industry's positive predictions for future production of oil. Since the mid-1990s he had been studying data from the 250 major oil fields that produce most of the world's oil. He looked at how much oil remained in each field and how fast the amount of oil was decreasing. He then added to those numbers all of the new fields that oil companies hoped to use in the future. When he calculated the numbers, Husseini says he realized that many oil experts "were either misreading the global reserves and oil-production data or making it unclear." B Average predictions showed that oil output was rising each year and could provide enough oil for the global demand, but Husseini's calculations showed that the output would start to level off as early as 2004. Just as surprising, this high point in production would last 15 years at most, and after that, the output of oil would begin "a gradual but irreversible decline." C Husseini isn't the first to raise the alarm of a peak in global oil output. For decades, oil geologists have theorized that when half of the world's original supply of oil has been taken from the earth, it will become more difficult, and eventually impossible, to get more oil out of the ground each year. Global output, which has risen from fewer than a million barrels a day in 1900 to around 85 million barrels today, will essentially stop. Ready or not, we will face a post-oil future. D Predictions of peak oil are highly controversial because no one really knows how much oil remains underground, and therefore, no one really knows how close we are to reaching the point when half of the world’s oil has been removed. Oil pessimists believe that the limit in oil production is imminent or has actually arrived. E Optimists, by contrast, believe that the halfway point is decades away because the world still has so much oil to be extracted or even discovered. Optimists also state that in the past, whenever pessimists have predicted an "imminent peak," output started to increase because of a new oil-field discovery or oil-extraction technology. But for the past few years, despite a continued rise in price, global oil output has remained around 85 million barrels a day, which is the same level where Husseini determined that output would begin to stabilize. F The change is so stark that the oil industry has lost some of its confidence. Last fall, the International Energy Agency released predictions showing that global oil demand would rise more than a third to 116 million barrels a day by 2030. Then, several oil-company executives expressed concern that production could ever keep up with demand. For example, Royal Dutch Shell's CEO, Jeroen van der Veer, estimated that "after 2015, supplies of easy-to-access oil and gas will no longer keep up with demand." G To be sure, experts in the oil industry do not talk about "peak oil" in a geologic sense. In their view, political and economic factors, rather than geologic ones, are the main problems to increasing output. Yet even oil optimists admit that physical limits are beginning to appear. H Consider the issue of discovery rates. Oil cannot be pumped from the ground until it is found, but the amount discovered each year has fallen since the early 1960s despite incredible technological advances. One reason for the decline is simple mathematics: Most of the big, easily located fields – the so-called "elephants" – were discovered decades ago, and the remaining fields are usually small. I Smaller fields also cost more to operate than larger ones do. This cost difference is one reason the industry prefers to get oil from large fields, and the large fields supply more than a third of our daily output. Unfortunately, because most of the biggest oil discoveries were made decades ago, much of our oil is coming from mature fields that are now approaching their maximum output or are even dropping. J Because more and more existing oil fields are becoming mature and unproductive and the global demand for oil continues to grow, the shortage of oil will increase. By 2010, according to James Mulva, CEO of ConocoPhillips, nearly 40 percent of the world's daily oil output will have to come from fields that have not been opened or even discovered. By 2030, nearly all of our oil will come from fields that are not currently in operation. K Whatever the limit turns out to be, one prediction seems secure: The time of cheap oil is behind us. If the past is any indication, the world may be in for a difficult period. A peak in oil production will also mean that because of the rising world population, the amount of gasoline and diesel available for each person on the planet may be much less than it is today. And that could be disastrous for the developing world, which relies on petroleum fuels for transport and also for cooking, lighting, and irrigation. L Husseini worries that the world has been slow to understand the prospect. Fuel-efficient cars and alternatives such as biofuels will compensate for some of the depleted oil supplies, but the bigger challenge may be to persuade oil-hungry societies to limit their demand for oil. Paul Roberts is the author of "The End of Oil" published in 2004.