Medical research

Scientists make big progress in building mini-kidneys

A team of scientists at the Keck School of Medicine of USC has created what could be a key building block for assembling a synthetic kidney. In a new study in Nature Communications, Zhongwei Li and his colleagues describe ...

Neuroscience

Taste and its two ways to the brain

There are a few ways we perceive food, and not all are particularly well-understood. We know that much of it happens in the olfactory bulb, a small lump of tissue between the eyes and behind the nose, but how the stimuli ...

Genetics

Taste buds may play role in fostering obesity in offspring

Cornell food scientists show in animal studies that a mother's high-fat diet may lead to more sweet-taste receptors and a greater attraction to unhealthy food in their offspring—resulting in poor feeding behavior, obesity ...

Medical research

New type of taste cell discovered in taste buds

Our mouths may be home to a newly discovered set of multi-tasking taste cells that—unlike most known taste cells, which detect individual tastes—are capable of detecting sour, sweet, bitter and umami stimuli. A research ...

Neuroscience

Sugar causes obesity even without sweet taste

Sugar causes obesity even in the absence of its sweet taste, according to a new study. The research was conducted in mice and also uncovered an increased risk of metabolic syndrome (increased blood pressure, high blood sugar, ...

Health

Sweet life, but without sugar

Barbara Lieder and her team at the Christian Doppler Laboratory for Taste Research investigate the taste profiles of alternative sweeteners. Their findings could lead to a better understanding of the effect that sweetening ...

Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes

Taste bud cells might not be a target of SARS-CoV-2

An intriguing early symptom among some COVID-19 patients is the loss of the sense of smell and/or taste, which has led to the suspicion that the virus that causes the illness, SARS-CoV-2, could be targeting taste buds. But ...

Health

Healthy eating over the holidays

Between bountiful buffets and "food-pushing relatives," the winter holidays hold landmines for those trying to eat healthy.

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