An artificial 'tongue' of gold to taste maple syrup

It's said that maple syrup is Quebec's liquid gold. Now scientists at Université de Montréal have found a way to use real gold—in the form of nanoparticles—to quickly find out how the syrup tastes.

Scientists discover a new class of taste receptors

Evolution is a tinkerer, not an engineer. "Evolution does not produce novelties from scratch. It works with what already exists," wrote Nobel laureate François Jacob in 1977, and biologists continue to find this to be true.

Making puffer fish toxin in a flask

In Japan, puffer fish is considered a delicacy, but the tickle to the taste buds comes with a tickle to the nerves: fugu contains tetrodotoxin, a strong nerve toxin. In low doses, tetrodotoxin is shown in clinical trials ...

New look at odd holes involved in taste, Alzheimer's, asthma

Many cells are covered with mysterious large holes, pores that have been associated with the sense of taste as well as Alzheimer's disease, depression, and even asthma. Knowing the structure of these varied holes will help ...

Artificial cells react to environmental changes

Cells are the basic unit of life. They provide an environment for the fundamental molecules of life to interact, for reactions to take place and sustain life. However, the biological cell is very complicated, making it difficult ...

page 5 from 24