Seeds from some of North America's hottest chili peppers were recently delivered to the cool Arctic and stored in the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, where they'll be safe for centuries in case some terrestrial catastrophe renders them otherwise extinct.

The so-called doomsday seed vault now contains seeds of more than 525,000 crop varieties from around the world, making it the most diverse assemblage of crops anywhere. The seed vault was constructed deep in a mountain on a remote Norwegian archipelago near the North Pole as a fail-safe back-up to existing crop collections around the world.

The new hot stash includes Wenk's Yellow Hots, a pepper that starts out yellow and hot and cools somewhat to red and medium-hot; Pico de Gallo or "Rooster's beak," a medium-hot salsa staple; and the unpredictable San Juan "Tsile," a New Mexico chili still grown by elder farmers in a Native American pueblo that can be anything from mild to medium to hot. [Related: Why Do Chili Peppers Taste Hot?]

As a teenager, I babysat for a little girl who regularly snuck into the kitchen, used all of her might to pry open the refrigerator door, and took a few big chugs of juice from the pickle jar before scampering back to the playroom to get back to her Barbies or Etch-a-Sketch or whatever pre-Zhu Zhu Pet toy was popular in the mid-90s.

I caught her doing it a few times and asked her mother if it was OK for the 3-year old to casting aside a sippy cup of whole milk for pickle juice. She said it explained why the pickle jar lid always seemed to be loose and her little girl had funky breath.

WASHINGTON (AFP) – US First Lady Michelle Obama on Friday challenged the maxim that too many cooks spoil the broth -- inviting 500 chefs to the White House to serve up a new initiative in her anti-obesity campaign.

 

It was a case of out of the kitchen and into the heat, as Obama gathered her guests in the blazing sunshine of the White House Rose Garden to launch a mentoring program which will see chefs adopt local schools.