Speaker 1: Welcome to brain stuff from how stuff works, Hey, brain stuff,
Speaker 1: Lauren Vogel bomb Here. It may seem like a ridiculous
Speaker 1: question at first, but it's actually a mind bender. Why
Speaker 1: can't you taste your tongue? A thirteenth century Indian mystic
Speaker 1: deaniche War even used it in contemplation on the very
Speaker 1: nature of being. Along with its fellow sense organs of eyes, ears, nose,
Speaker 1: and skin, the tongue serves as one of the primary
Speaker 1: ways we experience the world and form a working model
Speaker 1: of it. The same riddle is frequently applied to the eye.
Speaker 1: Though we can certainly see our own eyes and reflections,
Speaker 1: we can feel our own skin, though, of course, the
Speaker 1: tip of your left index finger can't touch itself, and
Speaker 1: the ear cannot hear itself, but neither does it make
Speaker 1: a sound. The tongue, however, looks in our mouth like
Speaker 1: a layered beast, flip flopping its way through our daily conversations,
Speaker 1: tasting our food and occasionally dislodging a little bit of
Speaker 1: it from our teeth. Perhaps we're more inclined to ponder
Speaker 1: the mystery of the tongue due to its hidden nature
Speaker 1: or the many lingering myths regarding its functionality. Tongue rolling,
Speaker 1: for instance, is not the simple genetic trait that we
Speaker 1: often chalk it up to be. Nor is the tongue
Speaker 1: our strongest muscle, and while we're at it, it's a
Speaker 1: collection of muscles. Neither is the tongue laid out like
Speaker 1: a simple map with different zones for sweet, salty, sour,
Speaker 1: and bitter. One of the biggest misconceptions about the tongue, however,
Speaker 1: is that it rules alone in its governance of flavor sensations.
Speaker 1: The receptor cells in our taste buds certainly carry out
Speaker 1: the chemical sensation of taste, but they're located on the
Speaker 1: bumpy external surface of our tongue. They're not able to
Speaker 1: turn those powers inward on themselves. They collect tactile and
Speaker 1: thermal details about any morsel that enters their domain. But
Speaker 1: the brain also depends upon your sense of smell to
Speaker 1: interpret flavor, So the tongue is not alone in its
Speaker 1: taste mission. Your tongue can taste food or the remnants
Speaker 1: of food in your mouth. Accidentally bite your tongue and
Speaker 1: you can taste the blood trickling out of its own wound.
Speaker 1: Fun fact, all that saliva and those blood vessels in
Speaker 1: your mouth seem to allow for quick healing. You can
Speaker 1: also taste your own saliva, and who hasn't had a
Speaker 1: bad taste in their mouth, whether from some aggressive garlic
Speaker 1: or an underlying medical condition. And yes, lovebirds, you can
Speaker 1: pick up on all these sensations during an open mouth kiss,
Speaker 1: but you'll still find yourself at pains to taste an
Speaker 1: actual living tongue. Psychologists also talk about the conception of habituation,
Speaker 1: or the idea that if a stimulus is presented often
Speaker 1: enough or for long enough, we learn to ignore it.
Speaker 1: Like that scent you sprits on before you leave the
Speaker 1: house that everyone but you can still smell later on
Speaker 1: in the day. The inability to taste our tongues could
Speaker 1: be an example of that phenomenon. In any case, we
Speaker 1: may not be able to taste our tongues for several reasons,
Speaker 1: but don't let that stand in the way of a
Speaker 1: little mystic naval gazing. Today's episode was written by Robert
Speaker 1: Lamb and produced by Tyler Clang. To hear more from Robert,
Speaker 1: check out his weird science podcast Stuff to Blow Your Mind,
Speaker 1: and of course, for lots more on this and other
Speaker 1: tasty topics. Visit our home planet, pustuf works dot com,
Speaker 1: m