Stripping down science, the naked scientists.

The Naked Scientists. Hello this week we're going to try to stimulate your senses.

We'll be demonstrating how taste and flavor perception works.

If you want to have a go to, you'll need some chewing gum and some icing sugar. We'll also meet someone for

whom making friends is well a matter of taste. Whenever I hear something or

whenever I see something my brain translates that into a taste.

If I don't like the taste of something, I don't particularly take to that person.

And the placebo effect, trick or treatment, how does it work and is it ethical for doctors to use it?

Plus, we'll also hear how the venom of one of the world's deadliest snakes contains painkillers that are more powerful than morphine.

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UK.

It is Sunday, October theth, and this is the naked scientist.

Hello, I'm Chris Smith and I'm joined by Martha Henricus.

Now most people regard taste as a very simple sense.

You put something in your mouth and your tongue tells you the flavor, right?

Well not quite because it turns out that how you perceive taste is a very intricate and

complicated relationship that combines several different senses,

apart from just your tongue's taste buds, food texture, smell, sight, and even the sounds

around you affect an eating experience and to explain exactly how with us

is Professor Barry Smith from the University of London hello Barry hello Barry

hello Barry so begin by taking us on a flavor trip if you like of what actually happens when we eat something.

Well as you just said people think they're getting most of the experience of flavor from their tongue,

...