By Mary Roach, Smithsonian Magazine

Chiliheads crave the heat that hurts so good, but nothing compares to the legendary superhot that spices life in remote India

In various tests carried out at the Indian Defence Research Laboratory and at New Mexico State University’s Chile Pepper Institute, the Bhut Jolokia has ranged from 500,000 to 1.5 million Scoville heat units (SHU). A chili that scores in excess of one million SHU qualifies as a “superhot.” By way of comparison, a jalapeño is around 4,000 SHU. (The Scoville number refers to how much dilution would be needed to render the heat imperceptible.)