Question of the Week

Scientifically, the film with the best theme tune is:

See Results

Random Fact

When you put a seashell against your ear, you don't hear the sound of waves but the echo of the blood pulsing in your own ear.


Geek of the week

Nominate someone...

Nominate a Geek. Email news@null- hypothesis.co.uk

Lunch Experiment: Sprouts into Parsnips

By Mark Steer

There’s a cunning way to trick your taste buds at Christmas dinner. It means that you’ll be able to force a few sprouts down to keep everyone happy whilst avoiding the urge to throw up.

What to do
  • Take something tasty that’s not too dissimilar to a sprout. We reckon parsnips because they are pretty pungent (and they’re more similar to a sprout than cranberry sauce).
  • Shove the tasty morsel near/up your nose (but not too far).
  • Eat the sprout.
  • There, it tasted better than usual didn't it.

What’s happened

Our sense of taste is actually mainly governed by smell. Our taste buds don’t have very good resolution, being only able to distinguish between bitter, sweet, salt, sour and umami (savoury). Our noses, on the other hand, can distinguish up to 10,000 different smells. A lot of what we think of as taste is actually smells passing through our mouths to the olfactory centres.

So by holding the parsnip under your nose you might be able to fool your brain into thinking that the sprout tastes of parsnip.

This experiment actually works best with foods which are also similar in texture, which isn’t quite the case with sprout and parsnips. If you don’t get a good response with the veg, see if you can fool yourself into believing that whipped cream is the actually chocolate mousse.


Fancy Flames < Prev | See all | Next > Create a Cloud



This experiment has been adapted from Mick O'Hare's excellent book How to Fossilise your Hamster see more at www.newscientist.com/hamster.


How about trying one of our other top tens:
Join our Facebook group!

Hub image: Sam Osbourne

Return to the top »

Share this

Bookmark this article at Digg Bookmark this article at del.icio.us Bookmark this article at Slashdot Bookmark this article at StumbleUpon Email this article to a friend

LATEST CONTENT

Search




RSS FEED

Register with The Null
15 Mar 2009
Website by Forward Slash Media and Bristol Developers