Page 120 - Miracles Within the Molecule

HArun yahya

Tongue Papillae

Windpipe
Taste Bud
Palatine
Tonsil

Bitter
Tongue Sour
Salty
Taste pore
Sweet

There are some 9,000 taste buds on the
tongue—mutu al y com pat ble epi the i al
i
l
l
cells in dif fer ent groups of 50 or 1,000. Taste recep tor
cell
That is why, when you bite into an apple,
you imme di ate y real ze it is an apple,
l
i
even if you can not see it.
per ceiv ing sweet ness, anoth er part for detect ing bit ter ness, and oth ers for
sour ness and salt i ness. Bitter can never be per ceived in the sweet region,
or sour in the bit ter region.
The region at the front of the tongue that serves to per ceive sweet -
ness is com posed of glu co phores. 54 There is pro tein in the glu co phore
struc ture. When any taste mol e cule from the out side reach es this region,
it estab lish es a hydro gen bond with that pro tein mol e cule and sends a
sig nal to the brain. In this way, you estab lish that what you are eat ing
tast es sweet and is—in our exam ple—an apple.
But how does the glu co phore recog nize the taste mol e cule? The
glu co phores can dis tin guish groups of atoms with spe cif ic geo met ri cal
arrange ments. The front of the tongue per ceives sweet ness because mol -
e cu les of an appro pri ate struc ture are able to bond there. We may com -
pare the entire tongue to a sort of jig saw puz zle. Pieces appro pri ate ly
shaped to fill empty spa ces set tle onto pre de ter mined areas. Depending
on where they set tle on the tongue, they set up sen sa tions. Sweet mol e -
cu les can never fill the empty spa ces on the region deter mined for sour -
ness, because their geo met ri cal shapes can not fit.

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