New Atlas

Science Audio available

Food-tasting "electronic tongue" seeks out the spice

Ben Coxworth May 14, 2019

If you worked as a taste-tester of spicy foods, you'd only be able to try a few samples at a time – after that, your taste buds would become desensitized and need a rest. A newly-developed "electronic tongue," however, can accurately measure the spiciness of multiple foods for hours at a time.

The prototype spiciness-measuring electronic tongue

Science Audio available

Feelings trump taste when it comes to preferences for beer and coffee

Matt Kennedy May 2, 2019

According to a new study from Northwestern University, our preference for sweet or bitter beverages isn't so much about flavor, but about the psychoactive buttons these drinks push in our brains.

Our preference for sweet or bitter beverages may not be so much about flavor, but about ...

Biology Audio available

Odor receptors in taste cells suggest you can smell with your tongue

Rich Haridy April 25, 2019

We know that our perception of flavor involves a complex interaction between odors detected in the nose and tastes sensed by our tongue. A study has discovered the same olfactory receptors that detect odors in our nose can be found in taste cells on the tongue.

New research has discovered functional odor receptors inside taste cells on the tongue

Biology Audio available

Severe flu could cause taste buds to grow in your lungs

Michael Irving April 2, 2019

In extreme cases the flu virus can actually reshape the structure of the lungs. Now, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania have discovered a major part of that restructuring that until now had gone unnoticed – “taste bud cells” seem to grow in the lungs after a severe case of the flu.

Biology Audio available

Researchers home in on the brain’s taste-sensing "sweet spot"

Rich Haridy March 14, 2019

The subjective nature of taste has made pinning down where this sense is processed in the brain difficult. But now researchers have finally homed in on the brain's "sweet spot," revealing the center responsible for processing different types of tastes.

A new study presents the best evidence to date of the exact location in the brain ...

Science Audio available

How genes influence preferences for tea or coffee

Rich Haridy November 15, 2018

Research has revealed that people with a preference for drinking coffee over tea tend to display a genetic variant that signals a higher sensitivity to tasting bitterness in caffeine. This counter-intuitive finding suggests the bitterness of caffeine reinforces an attraction to the beverage.

Sensitivity to the bitterness of caffeine has been found to actually increase a person's propensity to ...

Science

Sweet and bitter tastes switched in breakthrough mouse study

Rich Haridy May 30, 2018

Researchers have found that the brain's complex systems for processing taste can be effectively manipulated. In mice, the researchers were able to directly manipulate neurons in the brain, removing the ability to taste sweet and bitter foods, or to make sweet foods taste bitter, and vice versa.

Neural projections from the sweet (green) and bitter (red) pathways terminate at distinct targets in the ...

Science

How weight gain could be reducing your sense of taste

Rich Haridy March 20, 2018

A new study has found that when mice become obese they can also lose up to 25 percent of their taste buds. This connection between obesity and taste has previously been observed in humans but this is the first research to potentially uncover a biological explanation behind the phenomenon.

A new study in mice has revealed how weight gain could be changing the way you ...

Science

Virtual cocktail glass tricks the tongue into tasting the real thing without the calories

Michael Irving December 5, 2017

A new device could let you taste a drink without consuming any sugar or calories. The Vocktail (Virtual Cocktail) digitally changes the way a drink tastes, smells and looks, sprucing up plain old water or fine-tuning an existing drink.

The Vocktail is a virtual cocktail glass that can change the taste, smell and color of ...

Biology

Can we taste water after all?

Lisa-Ann Lee May 31, 2017

Whether water has a taste of its own or is merely a flavor carrier has long divided the scientific community. A new study by Caltech researchers could help advance this debate: according to their findings, not only does such a sense exist, but it's located in an unexpected place.

Water has been described as "tasteless" since the time of Aristotle but a new Caltech study ...