[HN Gopher] Salt Taste Is Surprisingly Mysterious ___________________________________________________________________ Salt Taste Is Surprisingly Mysterious Author : Tomte Score : 12 points Date : 2023-09-15 19:53 UTC (3 hours ago) (HTM) web link (nautil.us) (TXT) w3m dump (nautil.us) | r0m4n0 wrote: | Also, salt is the only mineral humans consume in raw form! | badtension wrote: | What about iodine? | hinkley wrote: | > But the real number is actually six, because we have two | separate salt-taste systems. One of them detects the attractive, | relatively low levels of salt that make potato chips taste | delicious. The other one registers high levels of salt--enough to | make overly salted food offensive and deter overconsumption. | | I can imagine a future scenario where, in the interests of public | health, someone figures out how to transliterate the 'too much | salt' genes to 'too much sugar' genes. | | Of the various ways that I could see human augmentation play out | for the better rather than the worse, I'd rank that right behind | tetrachromacy and hypoxia genes (particularly for Martians and | Lunatics) | satvikpendem wrote: | One must be careful when editing the germ line. Imagine that | your gene changes were propagated but a disaster befalls the | planet such that calories are now scarce as had been dozens of | millennia ago. Those who couldn't eat enough food or consume | enough sugar-based calories could die out, and if there are | enough of those kinds of people among the population, the | population size could reduce significantly. | koolba wrote: | > I can imagine a future scenario where, in the interests of | public health, someone figures out how to transliterate the | 'too much salt' genes to 'too much sugar' genes. | | Doing it for the masses "for their own good" is quite | dystopian. But doing it for yourself is easy and no gene | therapy is required. Just cut out sweet foods and after not too | long normal foods like bread will taste sweet, and sweetened | foods will taste unnaturally toxic. | MostlyStable wrote: | "simple" and "easy" are very much not the same thing. | Supermancho wrote: | Also making different choices is not the same thing as what | the OP suggested. | freitzkriesler2 wrote: | I always wondered if it is the sodium or the chlorine that | triggers the flavor. Unfortunately licking raw sodium would | explode and elemental chlorine is a gas that burns - \ _ ( tsu ) | _ / - | hinkley wrote: | Potassium chloride tastes a lot like salt, but not exactly. | Which I think means that it's some sort of 80/20 ratio. | | Also one of my favorite science thought experiments from the | last few years: What ~~does hydrogen~~ do protons taste like? | stouset wrote: | Hydrogen _ions_. More specifically, protons. | | Spoiler (rot13): Lbhe fbhe erprcgbef qrgrpg npvqf. Npvqf ner | zbyrphyrf juvpu unir serr cbfvgvir ulqebtra vbaf (nxn | cebgbaf). Cebgbaf gnfgr fbhe. | hinkley wrote: | I knew there was something wrong with that phrasing, thank | you. | | Turns out they taste like burning (acid, in particular). | Traubenfuchs wrote: | > Potassium chloride tastes a lot like salt | | Not at all, it's disgusting. The idea of replacing NaCl with | it is laughable. | crazygringo wrote: | It's not though? I can't really tell the difference at | normal food salt levels. | | For people with hypertension it's a fantastic replacement. | Or even if you're concerned about low potassium. | | I mean, Morton sells it as salt replacement in little salt | shakers in the grocery store. It's pretty mainstream. | Traubenfuchs wrote: | I don't think that question makes sense. This is like asking | whether the H or the O makes water wet: It's the combination. | MostlyStable wrote: | Except that NaCl dissolves into sodium and chloride ions in | water. in any context in which you are actually tasting it, | you are not tasting NaCl, you are tasting some combination of | Na+ and Cl-, at which point, asking which (if either) is the | one driving the experience. | janci wrote: | Somebody tried to find out: | https://youtu.be/RJh9yTIBY48?si=7YWV6WbZ3mAWE0Si | Synaesthesia wrote: | Ions are very different to the atomic form. For instance copper | is the familiar red-brown metal. Cu2+ ions though, are blue and | dissolve in water. Clearly they are entirely different species. | Synaesthesia wrote: | Still kinda disturbs me that scientists will routinely do some | kind of genetic or other biological modification of say, a mouse, | and then when the results are in, simply kill the animal and | dispose of it. | ChatGTP wrote: | This is why we worry about robot take over, it's because we're | assholes, we worry we'll create bigger, better assholes. | hinkley wrote: | We talk about which scientists we should put in charge of AI | and I think that's all wrong. The self-preserving question is | which _philosophers_ should we put in charge? And which group | of developmental psychologists should be auditing their work? | | Teach | | your children well | | Their father's hell did slowly go by | | Feed them on your dreams | | The one they pick's the one you'll know by | | ... | | And know they love you | satvikpendem wrote: | What else can they do with them? ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2023-09-15 23:00 UTC)