Look at your tongue closely. Get right up close to the mirror, in fact, get one of those stick-on magnifying mirrors so you can really see in there. Stick out your wiggly mouth muscle** and take a long gander at the little bumps thereon. If you are vigilant and have darn good eyesight you will observe the little papillae (taste buds/bumps), and you will also observe that they vary in shape and size depending on where they are located on your tongue. You'll have to stick your tongue way, way out - Gene Simmons style - to see the ones way back there. These are the little guys that let us taste our food and they are arranged in specific zones for tasting specific tastes. But funnily enough they only come in five categories (when I was in school it was only four) all combining to produce the myriad of flavors that we relish when we stuff our gobs with the yummies in which we delight.
Silly me was laboring under the falsehood that sour was already a given, perhaps because we tasted it we just assumed, however now we know the exact receptor. Nevertheless, sour is one of my favorites, if not my very FAVORITE, and as I read the above cited article my little mouth juicers (read that salivary glands) were really working it. My mouth filled right up with spit as if I had just eaten a slice of lime, sipped a tangy margarita, or crunched a lively salt-n-vinegar potatoe chip. The only confounding aspect, and little mentioned I might add, of that report was the confusion as to why a sour receptor/taster might have had any evolutionary validity or why the need.
Well don't you need to be able to tell acid from base when the enemies are trying to get you, when you are mixing one with t'other, when deciding red or white?? Sheesh, these scientists... a little sophistication please!!!
**which, did you know, is the strongest muscle in the human body [or alien body for that matter (I happen to know. They told me after the probing)]
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