Sometimes science reporting is so close to science fiction as to be nearly indistinguishable. Earlier this year one of our science writers went to the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting, which happened to be in Boston on the exact same weekend as Boskone. There would have been great opportunity for ribbing him about sneaking off to the science *fiction* writers convention if more of my office were fen and knew what the hell i was talking about.

In this case, i blame the researcher, and not so much the reporter, for being whimsical and over-anthropomorphizing.

This is the bit that bugged me:
Paul Sherman's own research on human cuisine found tropical cultures make much more use of spices, including chilies, than people from northern climes.

Like this is research? There are more chilies in tropical climes! I don't recall that the chili is naturally found in, say, Minnesota or England.