4.7 • 6K Ratings
🗓️ 1 August 2022
⏱️ 14 minutes
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0:00.0 | You're listening to shortwave from NPR. |
0:05.5 | When Dr. Danielle Reed was a kid, she conducted her own little experiments with taste. |
0:11.1 | I was very attracted to anything with like the tiniest hint of sweetness and so I started |
0:17.2 | by pulling the tender end of a grass-shoot and putting that in my mouth and chewing on |
0:21.8 | it. |
0:22.8 | And it was sweet. |
0:23.8 | So she started plucking the buds off of bushes and popping flowers into her mouth. |
0:28.0 | And then of course I found the inevitable which is that most things were bitter, right? |
0:31.8 | And honestly I ended up feeling perhaps a little unwell afterwards and so that was a good |
0:36.2 | lesson for me. |
0:37.8 | So a little inadvertent botanist in training? |
0:41.1 | Yes, well it's certainly a taste scientist from the early days. |
0:44.8 | Today, Danielle Reed is the associate director at the Monal Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia |
0:50.1 | where she researches taste and smell. |
0:52.8 | In particular, she studies how people differ in their sense of taste and how genetics |
0:57.6 | might influence that. |
0:59.2 | One of the things I love to do is this classroom demonstration where I take out this little |
1:03.4 | vial of white liquid and I taste a little bit of it and to me it tastes just like water, |
1:09.5 | right? |
1:10.5 | Absolutely, totally fine. |
1:11.9 | But to some of the people that will sample it, it's insanely bitter. |
1:16.5 | Like it's, I hate you bitter. |
... |
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