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1 Remember the tongue map you learned about in junior high—the one showing taste receptors for sweet flavors on the tip of the tongue, bitter in the back, and sour on the sides? It’s totally wrong.
2 That bogus map came from an English mistranslation of a German research paper.
3 In truth, any area can pick up any taste (although sensitivity does vary across the tongue).
4 We all know about sweet, salty, sour, and bitter. Less widely known is the fifth taste: umami, that savory flavor of soy sauce, tomatoes, and many other foods high in glutamate.
5 Japanese scientists recently identified umami receptors not only on the tongue but throughout the digestive tract. Their role in digestion and nutrition remains a mystery.
6 Those bumps on your tongue aren’t actually your taste buds. They are fungiform papillae—“mushroom-shaped nipples,”—and each houses 50 to 100 buds.
7 Scientists believe there are only a few receptor types each for sweet, sour, salty, and umami. But there are a lot more for bitter (at least 25).
8 Our sensitivity to bitterness may have evolved to protect us from poisons. Most toxic plant compounds, such as strychnine and cyanide, taste bitter.
9 About 15 to 25 percent of all Americans are supertasters, people who have more papillae and taste buds than the rest of us.
10 Too sensitive for their own good: Supertasters turn up their noses at bitter but nutrient-rich veggies such as broccoli and kale. Taste expert Linda Bartoshuk at the University of Florida found this group more likely to have precancerous colon polyps than people with a below-average number of taste buds.
11 Cheeseburger with a side of amoxicillin? The major nerve carrying taste signals travels through the middle ear on its way from tongue to brain. Bartoshuk is exploring the link between frequent ear infections and a heightened affinity for fatty foods.
12 Good taste starts early. The flavors of some foods, such as carrots, garlic, and vanilla, wind up not only in mother’s milk but even in amniotic fluid. Julie Mennella at the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia has shown that babies prefer foods they first “tasted” in the womb.
13 Odors inhaled by lactating mothers can affect the flavor of their milk, too. A poorly ventilated barn on a dairy farm can lead to unwanted funk at the breakfast table.
14 Celery, pork, and truffle mushrooms contain androstenone, an aromatic compound that strongly influences flavor. Half of all people cannot smell it, about 15 percent find it woody or floral, and the rest think it smells like stale urine.
15 Sweet treats and alcohol fire up many of the same reward circuits in the brain. Earlier this year, Mennella found that kids with a family history of alcoholism prefer more intensely sweet tastes.
16 And scientists came closer to explaining the munchies last January, when a team reported that endocannabinoids—chemicals related to the active ingredient in marijuana—enhance the taste of sweet foods.
17 Straight edge: The miracle fruit (Synsepalum dulcificum), native to West Africa, contains a glycoprotein called miraculin that binds to taste receptors on the tongue and makes sour foods taste sweet.
18 The fruit has caught on among “flavor trippers,” who pop the berry—or a tablet containing miraculin—to make foods like lemons taste as sweet as lemon pie.
19 At the University of Florida, food scientists have genetically engineered the miraculin gene into tomatoes and strawberries. Their goal is to design low-sugar fruits and vegetables that taste supremely saccharine. How sweet is that?
参考译文：
1.还记得你学过的味觉分布图吗？甜的味蕾在舌尖；苦的味蕾在舌根；酸的味蕾在两边？其实这是完全错误的。
2.以讹传讹的根源是有人把德语的研究报告翻译成英语的时候，翻译者本人理解错了。
3.事实是：舌头的每个部位都能尝到所有味道，虽然敏感性可能不同。
4.众人皆知，舌头有甜、咸、酸、苦四种味觉。不过很多人不知道舌头的第五种感觉：鲜味。酱油、西红柿和很多富含谷氨酸的食物都能带来这种味觉。
5.日本科学家最近发现：不仅舌头上有感受鲜味的味蕾，整个消化道都有这种味蕾。不过肠道内鲜味感受器对消化、营养有何作用尚不清楚。
6.舌头上的颗粒并不是味蕾，而是菌状乳头。每个蘑菇状的乳头上有50到100个味蕾。
7.感受甜、酸、咸、鲜的味蕾都只有少数几种，感觉苦的味蕾却至少有25种之多。
8.对苦味如此敏感的好处是避免我们中毒。很多有毒的植物成分，如马钱子碱、氰化物等，都是苦的。
9.美国人中有15%~25%的人为超级味觉师，他们的过人之处在于：舌乳头和味蕾比正常人多。
10.过犹不及：超级品尝师对花椰菜、甘蓝等营养丰富的蔬菜敬而远之，因为这些蔬菜的苦味在他们的嘴里都被放大了。科学家发现，具有超级味觉的人比味觉迟钝的人更容易发生癌前病变 - 结肠息肉。
11.奶酪汉堡诱发中耳炎？传递味觉信号的神经纤维从舌头上行至大脑的途中经过中耳。科学家正在努力证实高脂饮食习惯和频繁的耳内感染之间是否有某种关联。
12.与生俱来：胡萝卜、大蒜、香草等食物的味道不仅会进入母亲的乳汁，甚至会进入子宫内的羊水里。小宝宝们在妈妈肚子里尝到的味道影响出生后的饮食偏好。
13.哺乳期妇女吸入的气味也能影响其乳汁的味道。如果奶牛饲养在空气污浊的谷仓里，生产出来的牛奶口感也更差。
14.芹菜、猪肉和松露蘑菇含有雄烯酮，这是一种明显影响食物味道的芳香化合物。一半的人讨厌这种味道，15%的人认为它的味道类似于木头或花，其余的人觉得它闻起来像放久的尿。
15.甜食和酒精兴奋大脑中很多相同的奖赏回路。研究表明：有酗酒家族史的孩子更喜欢甜食。
16.研究报道中解释说：这些回路中的一种神经递质-内源性大麻素增强了对甜食的感觉。
17.神秘果：一种原产于西非的水果，内含一种叫神秘果蛋白的糖蛋白。神秘果蛋白结合在味蕾上以后，吃酸的东西也感到是甜的。
18.这种水果在“变味剂”中独领风骚，这种浆果，或者含有神秘果蛋白的药片就能让柠檬这样的食物吃起来和柠檬派一样甜。
19.佛罗里达大学的食品科学家们已经成功地把神秘果蛋白基因转入西红柿和草莓中。他们的目标是培育低糖但很甜的水果和蔬菜。这些该有多甜啊......
