Human Body
How We Taste and Smell: The Science of Flavor, 400 Odor Receptors, and the Nose-Brain Connection
Pinch your nose while eating a strawberry and the flavor nearly disappears — what remains is just sweetness with a hint of acid. Flavor, it turns out, is about 80% smell. The tongue detects only five basic tastes; the nose handles everything else through 400 distinct olfactory receptors, making smell the most molecularly diverse sensory system in the human body. Here is how these two ancient senses combine to produce the richness of what we call taste.