January 11 - Taste and Smell

Activity 1: How does taste work?

Sour – Lemon juice

Sweet – Orange juice

Bitter – coffee

Salty and Umami – Soy sauce

I could taste all four of the tastes.  I tasted some things in a little different place then they were on the map.  I could taste sweet on the font of my tongue. I could taste salty, sour, and umami more towards the sides of my tongue. I could taste bitter on all of my tongue. 

There are many different type of bitter compounds. I have probably tasted many different type of bitter compounds.  I think that there are similar receptors for the bitter, but they are not identical.   

After brushing my teeth, the orange juice tasted very bitter. The toothpaste changed the bitter receptors. Since the orange juice, which normally tasted sweet, tasted so bitter, I am going to guess that the bitter receptors became more sensitive.  I also feel like toothpaste affected the sweet receptors as well.  Looking at the picture, I would predict that the bitter receptors would be affected and that is what I experienced. 

Activity 2: What else is involved with taste?

I was not able to do this part of the experiment because we do not have jam in our house.

Activity 3: What else is involved with taste?

When I was blindfolded and just had to taste the chips, I guessed all three of the different kinds of chips right.  The three kinds of chips were original, corn, and salt and vinegar.  

When I had to smell a chip and then eat a different chip, I got 2 out of the 3 correct. I had to eat salt and vinegar and small original and I guess that one correct. I had to each salt and vinegar and smell corn and I got that one correct too. I had to east salt and vinegar and smell salt and vinegar and I got that one wrong. 

This shows that smell is also involved in taste.  When you can smell what you are eating, you can get a more distinct taste of the food that you are eating. 

Activity 4: Desensitization

The taster: I smelled it more on my own breath then I tasted it. I took a small amount because I don’t really like garlic. 

The non-taster: She smelled it a lot when I was talking. 

Everyone: We smelled it more from our own breath then the other people around us. 

Activity 5: How does your nose function as a spectroscope? How does olfaction (smell) work?

Molecule	Guess	Correct/Answer
Anethole	Licorice	Black Licorice
Benzaldehyde	Almond	Correct
Naphthalene	Something old	Moth balls
Menthol	Toothpaste
Geraniol	Cleaner	Geraniums
Vanillin	Vanilla	Correct
Ionone	No idea	Raspberries
a-pinene	Tree	Pine
Camphor	Vicks	Correct
Cinnamaldehyde	Extract	Cinnamon
Isoamyl acetate	Circus peanuts	Licorice
limonene	Lemon	Lemon
Eugenol	Pine cones	Cloves

Carvones

The two molecules have different smells because of the orientation of the carbon molecule next to the R group.  The R group comes off of the carbon molecule at a different angle on each molecule so that slight change changes the way that it smells.  They two molecules are closely related so they do smell similar.  They both have a smell that is similar to a pine smell. 

Combinatorial Chemistry

Most odors bind to more than one receptor. The smell that we get is a combination of all the active receptor and the interpretation that our brain creates based on these receptors.  This smells are very similar because the active similar receptors.