An exciting recent advance in the vanilloid field has been our discovery that resiniferatoxin (RTX), a naturally occurring diterpene combining structural features of the phorbol ester tumor promoters and of capsaicin (see structures in Fig. 1), functions as an ultrapotent capsaicin analog (4—6) and that the esterification of other phorbol-related diterpenes with homovanillic acid at the C-20 position yields synthetic vanilloids of the RTX class with unique spectra of action (7).

It is interesting to note that even as the arguments fly back and forth between the splatterpunks and the traditionalists of horror fiction, other forces appear to be eroding the ground on which the splatterpunks have made their stand.

He’s a player in robots and solar, cryptocurrency and climate, brain-computer implants to stave off the menace of artificial intelligence and underground tunnels to move people and freight at super speeds.

He liked Tom all right... Sampson and Bullock he could do without, however. Especially Sampson, who was too much of a grammar-school-type swot ever to be quite the thing.