Talks from the Bio lab desk

These events happen right after you accept the call/text from your group of friends that there is a party happening or the planned night out to the concert, which has finally materialized from the group chat. Now let us begin. Moment 1: Before the first drink. Everything is working as it should You’ve just arrived. Music’s loud, lights are low, and the night still feels full of possibility. You feel relaxed, alert, confident. Not drunk, but just good. Biologically, this is your brain at baseline. Your mood, focus, and confidence come from billions of nerve cells communicating with each other in a very organized way. Ever heard of dopamine and brain chemicals and how they give you mood and all? The nerve cells don’t touch, but instead, they pass these chemical messages across tiny gaps called synaptic clefts . An image of a synaptic cleft When one nerve wants to “talk,” it releases neurotransmitters, which are the chemical messengers like dopamine, serotonin, and others,...

Have you ever wondered why chocolate and chili, or wine and cheese, make such delightful pairs? Why do some flavor combinations taste better together than alone, while others clash terribly? The secret lies in how our brains and taste systems interpret mixed flavors, shaped by biology, ecology, and culture. In this post, we’ll dive into the science of flavor mixing, exploring how different tastes, aromas, and textures combine to create the rich food experiences we crave, and why some combinations work like magic.   What Is Flavor? First, let’s clarify: Taste refers to the five basic sensations detected by taste buds: sweet, salty, sour, bitter, and umami. Flavor is a complex perception that combines taste with smell (olfaction) , texture , temperature , and even sound . The nose plays a starring role, over 80% of what we perceive as flavor actually comes from smell!   The Biology of Flavor Mixing Our brains don’t just add flavors togethe...

Taste plays a crucial role in how we experience the world, it influences what we eat, how much we enjoy our food, and even how well we nourish ourselves.  However, there is that instance in which they tastes we gain from our food seem to miss as we consume our food. What happens when taste goes wrong? In this post, we’ll explore how taste perception changes across the human lifespan, how it's affected by illness and medication , and why these changes can have serious consequences for health and quality of life . The Changing Taste Map: Age and Taste Infancy to Childhood So let us go back to where it all, starts, literally. Newborns are born with taste buds that are fully functional.  Babies show clear preferences, in terms of their tastes, such as sweetness (e.g. milk), which is soothing, while bitterness (associated with toxins) causes aversion.  Children have more taste buds per area of tongue than adults, particularly sensitive to bitter, whic...