Science Question

[dappertophatter]

So, DD just finished the science unit on sound and is now learning about and the electromagnetic spectrum (light of all possible wavelenghts, frequencies, and colors.).

She knows that there are sounds and light too high and low for us to hear and see, and what she is wondering is:

Are there tastes and smells too strong for humans to detect?

I figured that obviously there are tastes and smells too low (or subtle) for humans to hear (tiny bit of pepper in scrambled eggs, the way dogs can track humans), and I'm really curious about this too.

Anybody?

(Blast, I just realized we'll be going away for four days. Oh well- I'll resurrect this thread after I get back.)

 

[alicefelldown]

This might help a little for the taste question.

http://health.howstuffworks.com/taste.htm

But for everyone who remembers arguing the tongue map as a grade-schooler, insisting they could perceive salt at the back of the tongue or sour at the tip, news that the tongue map is flawed at best must come as sweet vindication.

A German scientist named D.P. Hanig developed the tongue map in 1901 by asking volunteers where they could perceive sensation. Other scientists later corroborated his findings but charted the results in such a way that areas of lowered sensitivity looked like areas of no sensitivity. By 1974, Virginia Collings determined that while the tongue did have varying degrees of sensitivity -- some areas could perceive certain tastes better than others -- there was no real truth to the strict tongue map. Although taste receptors usually react strongly to a single taste, many respond to multiple gustatory stimulations. People can perceive taste anywhere there are taste receptors.

Scientists are also learning more about the shocking diversity of taste sensitivity.

Supertasters
Usually, it's great to have heightened senses like 20/20 vision or sharp hearing. But a heightened sense of taste, no matter how delicious it might sound, is really no joy. Supertasters are people with two or sometimes just one dominant allele for the gene TAS2R28. And although they can perceive more nuanced flavor in food than nontasters, they often find common foods too bitter, sweet or spicy.

In the 1930s, a scientist at DuPont discovered that people had varying degrees of sensitivity to the chemical PTC (phenylthiocarbamide). For some, PTC tasted shockingly bitter, but for the mystified minority, PTC had no taste at all. Due to concerns about PTC's safety, scientists began studying people's reactions to PROP (6-n-propylthiouracil), a synthetic compound used in thyroid medicine. For nontasters, PROP had no flavor; for tasters, it was unpleasant and for supertasters, PROP slapped the tongue with an intense bitterness.

In 1991, Linda Bartoshuk, then of Yale Medical School, coined the name "supertasters" for the people with acute PROP sensitivity and noticed that they had a denser covering of fungiform papillae than nontasters. She linked the number of taste receptor cells to supertaste.

For supertasters, coffee, hoppy beer and vegetables like Brussels sprouts might be too bitter; cake and ice cream might be too rich and chili peppers might be too hot.​

 

[WriterofWords]

tastes and smells too low (or subtle) for humans to hear (tiny bit of pepper in scrambled eggs

I'm sorry,,, but what is pepper saying to the eggs? LOL!

 

[rebelcowboysnb]

There are smells that are to strong for our olfactory nerves to receive an they are some to weak. But unlike sound an light it is not measured in frequency. Taste an smell is the act of testing for chemicals. Each olfactory nerve or taste bud is set to detect a slightly different chemical composition than its neighbor. The combination of them all makes us be able to taste or smell most things. Taste an smell are really the same sense. They are just separated by how we use them.Things we know as odorless or tasteless are not really. We just have no nerves that are set to detect them. There are also things that we can smell only once in our lives. If you smell these things it burns out the olfactory nerves that are set to find them an you will never smell them again. Most of which are deadly if you keep breathing them.

An there is also what is called going nose deaf. The act of detecting a smell for so long your brain stops taking information from those olfactory nerves.