Here's something you might be interested in.
Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed
Big Screen — Movie commentary
Blurt — Music's inside track
Booze News — San Diego spirits
Classical Music — Immortal beauty
Classifieds — Free and easy
Cover Stories — Front-page features
Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes
Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts
Feast! — Food & drink reviews
Feature Stories — Local news & stories
Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore
From the Archives — Spotlight on the past
Golden Dreams — Talk of the town
The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it
Letters — Our inbox
Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites
Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans
Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists
Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news
News Ticker — News & politics
Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated
Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna
Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated
Poetry — The old and the new
Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers
Reading — The hunt for intellectuals
Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails
San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds
SD on the QT — Almost factual news
Sheep and Goats — Places of worship
Special Issues — The best of
Street Style — San Diego streets have style
Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves
Theater — On stage in San Diego this week
Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative
Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work
Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego
Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads
Your Week — Daily event picks
The Taste Gene, Birds Aren't Mammals
Heymatt: Everybody in my family hates cabbage. And my dad and sister won’t eat broccoli. That got us wondering if taste is genetic. Did I inherit my cabbage hate from my parents? Broccoli’s not my favorite, but I can choke it down. — Mmmm, Carrots, El Cajon
Because taste peculiarities have many applications in the jillion-dollar food industry, just about everything taste- and smell-related has been put through the scientific wringer. Without a profitable application, the science guys would consider your question pointless. But somebody’s been paid a lot to look into this assumption in order to sell us more horrifying frozen dinners.
It’s a pretty sure bet that your family has the bitter-sensitive gene, maybe two of them, which can make you hypersensitive to bitter. The science guys have identified it. That means you can taste the sharp edge in things like grapefruit, raw leafy greens, green tea, broccoli, cabbage, coffee — that kind of stuff. It means that you and a guy who has no bitter-taste gene (a large portion of the population lacks the gene) will get into a big argument at your next wine-tasting when you sense bitterness in the same wine the other guy loves. This gene setup also explains why many little kids won’t touch spinach and its relatives. Luckily, dieticians believe eating experience and food environment can often overcome a genetic taste preference; if you’re bitter sensitive, you might learn to drink coffee by loading in the sugar. But it also means that if you have the patience to keep throwing spinach at your kid, some day he might actually like it.
Sweet taste preference is a little fuzzier, according to the science guys. There is definitely some gene (more likely, genes) that determines how much sweet taste a person can tolerate. The taste testers have found at least one gene in mice that makes them sugar freaks. They’re assuming we have some too, since sweet tolerance varies individually.
Consider yourself lucky you’re not the guy who has to count types and distribution of taste buds on people’s tongues. This is the expression of the various taste genes.
Hey Matt: This week the birds are smarter than you. It is possible that some bird crap corroded the terminals of the MA Smartometer. You stated “They have the highest brain-to-body-weight ratio of any mammals.” As only animals with true hair and give live birth are mammals, your statement is something that a birdbrain would say. — Mark, via email
Dear Matthew: Please report to grandma for discipline. Birds are not mammals, they are of the class aves. — Bill Nagy, San Diego
Hi: Check out the recent stories/research about crows. They learned to use traffic to crack nuts, and some guy has trained them to find spare change! — Martin, visiting from Arkansas
Hey Matt, I was a little surprised by your answer about bird brains. Several years ago I stopped in to visit a friend in Lemon Grove. She was babysitting a cockatoo that displayed the most amazing mix of inquisitiveness, beak and claw dexterity, and moment-appropriate vocalizations that I have ever seen or heard of. While I was there the bird dismantled a computer keyboard, took the arms off a pair of reading glasses by removing the screws, and while my friend napped, removed every button on every piece of clothing she was wearing. The bird was obviously miffed from being ignored during the nap, but also displayed a remarkable IQ. — Jeff, via email
Oy. The Gotcha Gang strikes again. Yeah, yeah, birds aren’t mammals, and I’m not perfect. Well, yes I am. It’s the research elves who aren’t perfect. How many times have I told them not to proofread while skateboarding? As for the clever crows cracking nuts and finding spare change, I’m not surprised. Crows, like humans and apes, actually make tools. They modify sticks or whatever’s around if they think it would help them get at food. There’s a video on the web that shows a crow confronted with a straight piece of wire and a glass jar containing a bit of food attached to a loop of plastic. The jar’s too deep for the crow to dip its beak in and extract the food. It tries with the straight wire, but the loop keeps sliding off. Without losing a beat, the bird bends the wire into a J shape, sticks it into the jar, hooks the plastic loop, and brings out the food. Heck, that bird probably would have gotten better grades than I did in geometry and physics.
Here's something you might be interested in.
The Taste Gene, Birds Aren't Mammals
The Taste Gene, Birds Aren't Mammals
Heymatt: Everybody in my family hates cabbage. And my dad and sister won’t eat broccoli. That got us wondering if taste is genetic. Did I inherit my cabbage hate from my parents? Broccoli’s not my favorite, but I can choke it down. — Mmmm, Carrots, El Cajon
Because taste peculiarities have many applications in the jillion-dollar food industry, just about everything taste- and smell-related has been put through the scientific wringer. Without a profitable application, the science guys would consider your question pointless. But somebody’s been paid a lot to look into this assumption in order to sell us more horrifying frozen dinners.
It’s a pretty sure bet that your family has the bitter-sensitive gene, maybe two of them, which can make you hypersensitive to bitter. The science guys have identified it. That means you can taste the sharp edge in things like grapefruit, raw leafy greens, green tea, broccoli, cabbage, coffee — that kind of stuff. It means that you and a guy who has no bitter-taste gene (a large portion of the population lacks the gene) will get into a big argument at your next wine-tasting when you sense bitterness in the same wine the other guy loves. This gene setup also explains why many little kids won’t touch spinach and its relatives. Luckily, dieticians believe eating experience and food environment can often overcome a genetic taste preference; if you’re bitter sensitive, you might learn to drink coffee by loading in the sugar. But it also means that if you have the patience to keep throwing spinach at your kid, some day he might actually like it.
Sweet taste preference is a little fuzzier, according to the science guys. There is definitely some gene (more likely, genes) that determines how much sweet taste a person can tolerate. The taste testers have found at least one gene in mice that makes them sugar freaks. They’re assuming we have some too, since sweet tolerance varies individually.
Consider yourself lucky you’re not the guy who has to count types and distribution of taste buds on people’s tongues. This is the expression of the various taste genes.
Hey Matt: This week the birds are smarter than you. It is possible that some bird crap corroded the terminals of the MA Smartometer. You stated “They have the highest brain-to-body-weight ratio of any mammals.” As only animals with true hair and give live birth are mammals, your statement is something that a birdbrain would say. — Mark, via email
Dear Matthew: Please report to grandma for discipline. Birds are not mammals, they are of the class aves. — Bill Nagy, San Diego
Hi: Check out the recent stories/research about crows. They learned to use traffic to crack nuts, and some guy has trained them to find spare change! — Martin, visiting from Arkansas
Hey Matt, I was a little surprised by your answer about bird brains. Several years ago I stopped in to visit a friend in Lemon Grove. She was babysitting a cockatoo that displayed the most amazing mix of inquisitiveness, beak and claw dexterity, and moment-appropriate vocalizations that I have ever seen or heard of. While I was there the bird dismantled a computer keyboard, took the arms off a pair of reading glasses by removing the screws, and while my friend napped, removed every button on every piece of clothing she was wearing. The bird was obviously miffed from being ignored during the nap, but also displayed a remarkable IQ. — Jeff, via email
Oy. The Gotcha Gang strikes again. Yeah, yeah, birds aren’t mammals, and I’m not perfect. Well, yes I am. It’s the research elves who aren’t perfect. How many times have I told them not to proofread while skateboarding? As for the clever crows cracking nuts and finding spare change, I’m not surprised. Crows, like humans and apes, actually make tools. They modify sticks or whatever’s around if they think it would help them get at food. There’s a video on the web that shows a crow confronted with a straight piece of wire and a glass jar containing a bit of food attached to a loop of plastic. The jar’s too deep for the crow to dip its beak in and extract the food. It tries with the straight wire, but the loop keeps sliding off. Without losing a beat, the bird bends the wire into a J shape, sticks it into the jar, hooks the plastic loop, and brings out the food. Heck, that bird probably would have gotten better grades than I did in geometry and physics.
Comments