The tricks your mind plays on you are up for analysis this week as we explore the science of taste including why noise diminishes food flavour aboard an aeroplane and how much affects your choice of wine. We also speak to a synaesthete who, quite literally, tastes the people he meets, and we probe the workings of the placebo effect. Plus, pain killers from black mamba venom, why teenagers take risks and the age old chestnut of why names are so hard to remember...
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Most people regard taste as a very simple sense. You put something in your mouth and your tongue tells you the flavour, right? Well, not quite. How you perceive taste is a very intricate and complicated relationship that combines several different senses. Apart from just your ...
How does synaesthesia work? What causes it? Is there any agreement on what colour 'A' and are the associations cultural? We put these questions and more to Duncan Carmichael, a synaesthesia researcher at the University of Edinburgh.
Venom from the black mamba snake contains two powerful new pain-killing chemicals, French scientists have discovered.
Teenagers take many more risks than both adults and children. What causes this risky behaviour? Researchers have found that thrill-seeking behaviour isn't driven by a desire to seek out risks, but something altogether more ambiguous.
A new diagnostic tests for new-born babies has been developed. In under 50 hours, it can comb a newborn's entire genome for teh signatures of more than 3,500 genetic disorders.
A stem cell breakthrough shows that bodily cells can be reprogrammed straight to neurons with the addition of just two factors...
Eggs capable of being fertilised and turning into healthy mice that are themselves fertile have been produced from stem cells by scientists in Japan.
How to rejuvenate the flavour of tired chewing gum, and how the food industry enhances taste.
The placebo effect is a reported improvement in a patient’s condition in response to their own expectation that a drug or treatment will make them better. Even giving a person a pill containing sugar and nothing else can still produce powerful painkilling effects if the person ...
How do we learn to like new taste and smells? I used to hate the king of the fruits, a durian. But after a few years of learning how it smells and tastes, it’s just incredibly good. So please get some durian in the studio.
Is it true that our taste buds change as we age because some people like things more when they're older than when they were younger?
Is there a way to train the brain out of synaesthesia?
I've never had any sense of smell whatsoever. My wife has a good sense of smell. Quite often, we totally agree that something turns up to be delicious and sometimes we violently disagree. I’d like to know actually because I don’t have a sense of smell, am I actually arguing wi...
How do psychedelic drugs generate synesthetic experiences such as seeing the colours of music?
Chris,
I am a great fan of your program and listen regularly to your podcasts when travelling.
I have a terrible memory for names, to the point where I can be introduced to someone and have forgotten their name a few moments later. Is there an explanation?
Regards,
Davi...
Climate change could be altering the migration patterns of seabirds and a team, led by the University of Glasgow, is studying one seabird in particular. They’re called prions– a type of petrel whose beaks filter food from the sea. They’re especially fond of tiny crustaceans know...
In this week's NewsFLASH, we look at companion black holes, artificial bee brain design and hypo-allergenic cow's milk.
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