An anonymous reader writes: From the New Yorker, "Chilis have become an attractive business. According to a report by IBISWorld, a market-research firm, hot-sauce production is one of America’s ten fastest-growing industries, along with solar-panel manufacturing and online eyeglass sales. Last year, the Los Angeles hot-sauce company Huy Fong Foods sold more than sixty million dollars’ worth of sriracha. (Americans bought so much sriracha in 2007 that there was a three-month national shortage.) Chilis are the male equivalent of cupcakes, tempting entrepreneurial amateurs with dreams of a more flavorful life. Gerald Fowler said, “In the last five years, you find somebody’s been made redundant, he likes chili, he’ll set up a chili business.” The month after the Naga Viper got the Guinness record, Fowler made an extra forty thousand dollars. ... (A recent study found a positive correlation between chili-eating and “sensation-seeking” behavior.) As a leisure activity, superhots offer some of the pleasures of mild drugs and extreme sports without requiring one to break the law or work out. They are near-death experiences in a bowl of guacamole."