New Atlas

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 ...

Science

Virtual lemonade teleports taste into plain old water

Michael Irving March 28, 2017

Researchers from the National University of Singapore (NSU) have developed a way to capture and digitally transmit the flavor of a drink that is reproduced using electrodes to trick your tongue into tasting the sourness of lemonade when all you're really drinking is boring old water.

The pH sensor on the left is used to capture the flavor of a drink and ...

Health & Wellbeing

Edible Mist Machine offers a guilt-free flavor hit

Nick Lavars June 10, 2014

UK-based food inventor Charlie Harry Francis is looking to challenge the idea that the sensory delight offered by our favorite foods need live on in the form of bulging waistbands. His Edible Mist Machine is capable of producing inhalable mists ranging in flavor from smoked bacon to apple pie.

The Edible Mist Machine uses a process described as ultrasonic vaporization to create more than 200 ...

Science

Electronic tongue gets a taste for beer

Darren Quick February 4, 2014

An electronic tongue developed by researchers at Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona can accurately distinguish between various beer varieties with a success rate of almost 82 percent.

An electronic tongue is able to distinguish between varieties of beer with a success rate of ...

Electronics

Computer rendering of taste is on the tip of the tongue

Brian Dodson November 28, 2013

Today is Thanksgiving Day in the United States, a holiday in which we celebrate the blessings granted by Life, the Universe, and Everything. It may soon be possible to enjoy such a repast as a character in a movie or a video game, aided by a new method for digitally actuating the sense of taste.

The tongue interface and control system assembly (Photo: National University of Singapore)