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originally posted by: neoholographic
The sense of smell comes down to vibrations and quantum tunneling. This means we smell food, we don't taste it. This is why when your nose is stuffy you can't experience food.
Still, what sucks with both colds and flu (aside from feeling ghastly) is that you can’t even enjoy the flavour of that yummy chicken soup you thought would make you feel better. Of course, it’s because you’ve lost your sense of taste along with your sense of humour. But ever wondered why you can’t taste properly with a cold or stuffy nose?
More importantly though, is to understand that the flavour of food involves both smell and taste. In fact, 80% of our taste is related to smell, so it’s not surprising that most of the flavour of a food comes from your ability to smell it, explains Professor Jeremiah Alt, Assistant Professor of Surgery and Rhinology at University of Utah Hospitals and Clinics.
In an online article on the American Rhinologic Society (ARS) website, he explains that the tongue is your taste organ, as it can sense salty, sweet, sour, bitter and umami (savoury). “Our sense of smell (known as olfaction) provides the rest of a food’s flavour, which is why it’s difficult to appreciate food flavour when you have nasal obstruction from a cold, stuffy nose or rhinosinusitus.”
When you have a cold, the swelling causes inflammation and obstruction, which impairs your smell. The flavour of food is produced only after taste is combined with a smell, so if a stuffy nose impairs your sense of smell, it will also decrease your perception of taste.
When your nose is stuffy, taste receptors in your taste buds have to do the job of assessing food flavour in different taste molecules all on their own. Truth is, even though you have around 2000 and 5000 taste buds on your tongue, in your mouth and throat (with each containing 50 to 100 taste receptor cells) they still don’t come close to what your nose knows!
Again, what you're saying is meaningless opinion.
originally posted by: ausername
a reply to: neoholographic
Interesting thread!
On black holes here is a new item that has scientists scratching their heads...
NASA’s Hubble telescope detects supermassive black hole that defies theoretical models
www.foxnews.com...
Perhaps one day it will be discovered that supermassive black holes are the key to the origin of galaxies?
Without them the universe as we know it wouldn't exist? It would be as you said "99.9999999%" empty space.