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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?
參考譯文：
1.還記得你學過的味覺分布圖嗎？甜的味蕾在舌尖；苦的味蕾在舌根；酸的味蕾在兩邊？其實這是完全錯誤的。
2.以訛傳訛的根源是有人把德語的研究報告翻譯成英語的時候，翻譯者本人理解錯了。
3.事實是：舌頭的每個部位都能嘗到所有味道，雖然敏感性可能不同。
4.眾人皆知，舌頭有甜、咸、酸、苦四種味覺。不過很多人不知道舌頭的第五種感覺：鮮味。醬油、西紅柿和很多富含谷氨酸的食物都能帶來這種味覺。
5.日本科學家最近發現：不僅舌頭上有感受鮮味的味蕾，整個消化道都有這種味蕾。不過腸道內鮮味感受器對消化、營養有何作用尚不清楚。
6.舌頭上的顆粒并不是味蕾，而是菌狀乳頭。每個蘑菇狀的乳頭上有50到100個味蕾。
7.感受甜、酸、咸、鮮的味蕾都只有少數幾種，感覺苦的味蕾卻至少有25種之多。
8.對苦味如此敏感的好處是避免我們中毒。很多有毒的植物成分，如馬錢子堿、氰化物等，都是苦的。
9.美國人中有15%~25%的人為超級味覺師，他們的過人之處在于：舌乳頭和味蕾比正常人多。
10.過猶不及：超級品嘗師對花椰菜、甘藍等營養豐富的蔬菜敬而遠之，因為這些蔬菜的苦味在他們的嘴里都被放大了。科學家發現，具有超級味覺的人比味覺遲鈍的人更容易發生癌前病變 - 結腸息肉。
11.奶酪漢堡誘發中耳炎？傳遞味覺信號的神經纖維從舌頭上行至大腦的途中經過中耳。科學家正在努力證實高脂飲食習慣和頻繁的耳內感染之間是否有某種關聯。
12.與生俱來：胡蘿卜、大蒜、香草等食物的味道不僅會進入母親的乳汁，甚至會進入子宮內的羊水里。小寶寶們在媽媽肚子里嘗到的味道影響出生后的飲食偏好。
13.哺乳期婦女吸入的氣味也能影響其乳汁的味道。如果奶牛飼養在空氣污濁的谷倉里，生產出來的牛奶口感也更差。
14.芹菜、豬肉和松露蘑菇含有雄烯酮，這是一種明顯影響食物味道的芳香化合物。一半的人討厭這種味道，15%的人認為它的味道類似于木頭或花，其余的人覺得它聞起來像放久的尿。
15.甜食和酒精興奮大腦中很多相同的獎賞回路。研究表明：有酗酒家族史的孩子更喜歡甜食。
16.研究報道中解釋說：這些回路中的一種神經遞質-內源性大麻素增強了對甜食的感覺。
17.神秘果：一種原產于西非的水果，內含一種叫神秘果蛋白的糖蛋白。神秘果蛋白結合在味蕾上以后，吃酸的東西也感到是甜的。
18.這種水果在“變味劑”中獨領風騷，這種漿果，或者含有神秘果蛋白的藥片就能讓檸檬這樣的食物吃起來和檸檬派一樣甜。
19.佛羅里達大學的食品科學家們已經成功地把神秘果蛋白基因轉入西紅柿和草莓中。他們的目標是培育低糖但很甜的水果和蔬菜。這些該有多甜啊......
