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Taste resolves into five basic categories
Sweet, sour, salty, bitter and umami are detected by separate receptor mechanisms Each taste category maps onto distinct receptors, from sugar-sensing proteins to acid channels and amino acid detectors. Bitter detection uses a large family of receptors, thought to be a guard against plant toxins. Fat and starch may form additional categories that research is still defining. It sits in Mondo's human body collection, one of 200 facts that each trace back to the reference below.
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Taste buds replace their sensory receptor cells every two weeksGustatory cells undergo rapid turnover to maintain keen taste perceptionMost of what we call flavour comes from smellAromas rising from the mouth to the nose supply the greater part of flavourThe human tongue is a complex muscular hydrostatEight interwoven muscles allow the tongue to move freely without bony supportSalt suppresses bitterness on the tongueA pinch can make bitter greens taste sweeter without adding sugarA chameleon's tongue fires like a catapultIt reaches prey in about a twentieth of a secondA woodpecker's tongue wraps around its skullThe long tongue is stored in a sheath that loops over the back of the head
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Tags: taste, receptors, tongue
Taste resolves into five basic categories: the short answers
- Where does this come from, and can I check it?
- Sweet, sour, salty, bitter and umami are detected by separate receptor mechanisms. The figure is taken from NIH, which is linked in full on this page. Every fact on Mondo Knows names its source rather than repeating an unsourced claim.
- Is this really a human body fact?
- Yes. It sits on the Human Body shelf, one of 2,600 sourced facts grouped into space, animals, the human body, history, science and more. Category pages collect every fact in the same field.
- What else can I read about it?
- The links under the fact point to a quiz, game, puzzle or calculator on the same subject, and the shelf below shows related facts. The wording here is original, and quoted phrases are marked as quotations.