4) why does salt cause our food to taste much better, when if
taken alone causes anyone to frown? is there a science as to how
the "taste" of salt in registered in our tastebuds?
No, I do not why. I think one of the regular forumners is into
nutritional science....she can probably answer this question
better.
5) some people now use sweeteners instead of sugar for their
coffees and tea. once, i added a few of those Equal "pills" into my
tea. the first sip of the tea and i thought, oh sht, i might have
added too much. but subsequent sips didnt taste all that sweet
afterall. it was as if i hadnt even added any sweetener at all. wad
is going on?
Really? Equal contains aspartame, I think, and that is many times
sweeter than sugar weight for weight. At one time there was some
concern about health risks (not proven) and I wonder if they have
lowered the concentration. I can tell the difference between the
sweetness with ordinary sugar and that of aspartame. Perhaps your
sense of taste is better developed than most and so you are able to
distinguish the sweetness of aspartame as being a different flavour
rather than recognizing it as sweet. This is not my field and
perhaps we can hear from a nutritionist.
Incidentally, the BBC had a programme talking about those who are
fussy eaters tend to have more prominent taste buds and so are
better able to distinguish between flavours compared to most
others. Maybe you are one of them.
6) when different people sneeze, they sound different. there's the
very loud ones. there's the "hold nose and a small nasal snort
comes out" kind. there are people who "abort" a sneeze only to
utter "achoo" a sec later. how do we all sneeze differently?
A sneeze is a forceful expulsion of air from the lungs initiated by
nerve endings in the nasal mucosa. An irritant in the trachea
results in a cough. Actually the two are quite similar: forced
contraction of the diaphragm and chest wall to expel air in a bid
to remove the irritant. Although the sneeze response is mostly
involuntary, the way the air is directed will result in different
sounds. Some people direct air out completely through the nose and
mouth, others consciously try to hold it down. Try it: next time
you sneeze, try to modify the sound by directing it
differently.
7) what exactly are moles? (i dunno if i've asked this already, but
i still dun quite understand). how do they begin? how do they
disappear? why are some persistent.
ok...I know a bit more about this. Moles are localised skin
pigmentation due to local proliferation of melanocytes. Quite a
number of conditions are called 'moles'. In general, they are a
response to sunlight and there are strong genetic and racial
influences.
A uniform increase in the number of melanocytes at the
dermal-epidermal junction in a linear fashion produces a lentiges
or ephilis. That is a flat patch of skin pigmentation. What is
commonly recognized as a 'mole' is a melanocytic nevus. That is a
nest or nests of melanocytes. They usually start at the
dermal-epidermal junction as a 'junctional nevus' and then drop
into the dermis as they mature. If the nests are completely located
in the dermis, they are called an 'intradermal nevus' (and are
often raised as a nodule). If it is located in both locations, it
is a compound nevus.
Melanocytic nevus can persist or with time, they may mature and be
replaced by fat (lipomatous metaplasia). Sometimes an inflammatory
reaction occurs against the mole, destroying the melanocytes and
producing a halo nevus as the edge of the mole loses its
pigmentation due to lymphocytic attack. very rarely, some cases can
turn malignant and become a melanoma. I do not know why some moles
regress and others persist.
