What does our own human tongue taste like, according to biology?
365077
It probably tastes like pig or cow tongue (tripe?).  Nasty muscle flavor.  You just have to think about what the tongue is; a big muscle, that's it.
316572
give it a good sniff.  it tastes a lot like that, i imagine.
68467
Sounds like a title for a school science fair project.\n\nYour basic senses can overlap in your daily life, including when you eat.  Doesn't the food taste different when you have a stuff nose during a cold?  Haven't you ever seen someone hold their nose when eating something they didn't like?\n\nIf you think about it -- sight affects taste, too.  Would you eat a green steak or drink blue coffee?  Even if they were both of the highest quality?  Our senses overlap and cause crazy reactions to simple things sometimes...
343877
The tongue has receptors in it, that distinguish different molecules, which the brain interprets and records, and uses for reference later on. In conjunction with the tongue, the nose differentiates smells that coincide with tastes, and are also recorded somewhere in the brain. "Taste" is actually smell and taste, as interpreted and learned by our brain! :)
125273
It's hard to describe, since it's slightly different for different people. As far as I know, it doesn't taste or smell like anything extreme. It feels pretty slippery and like mucous.
319997
actually, we have different kinds of taste buds that do different things. some are only there to move food along, others have pores which entrap food and absorb the chemicals to stimulate our sensory neurons. We use our smell as well because all foods have odors that are detected by the odorant binding molecules located near the nose, superior to the roof of the mouth. To sum up your question, it has to do with the odorants binding to the receptors in the nose to send messages to the brain and also the tastant molecules being mixed with saliva to dissolve the taste to send messages to the brain. the cerebral cortex/
104447
The tongue is the large bundle of muscles on the floor of the mouth that manipulates food for chewing and swallowing. It is one of the organs of taste. Much of the surface of the tongue is covered in taste buds. The tongue assists in forming the sounds of speech, and also plays a major role in sexuality, such as in the french kiss and oral sex.\n\nThe word tongue can be used as a synonym for language, e.g., as in the phrase mother tongue.\n\nIt is also examined and observed diagnostically in traditional Chinese medicine.\n\nThe tongue is made mainly of skeletal muscle and attached to the hyoid bone, mandible and the styloid processes of the temporal bone.\n\nThe muscles that attach the tongue are the extrinsic muscles of the tongue. Inside the tongue, there are four pairs of intrinsic muscles that can alter the shape of the tongue for talking and swallowing. Since it contains no supporting skeletal structures for the muscles, the tongue is an example of a muscular hydrostat, like an octopus arm.\n\nA muscular hydrostat is a biological structure, found in animals. It is used to manipulate items (including food), or to move its host about, and is made mainly of muscles, with no skeletal support. It performs its hydraulic movement without fluid in a separate compartment, as in a hydrostatic skeleton. The principle behind the hydrostatic skeleton is that water is effectively incompressible at physiological pressures. Therefore, a fiber-wound chamber full of water will act as a constant-volume system. What makes the muscular hydrostat special is that it relies on the same principle, but there is no water-filled cavity. Instead, the bulk of the organ is made up of muscle, which also has constant volume. Therefore, instead of a cylinder wrapped with muscle and connective tissue that changes its shape, a muscular hydrostat is a cylinder made of muscle.\n\nMuscular hydrostat is a term coined by Dr. William M. Kier in 1982 to characterize the arms of octopuses and the arms and tentacles of squid. In a paper published in 1985, he showed that other organs, such as mammalian and reptile tongues and elephant trunks, fit in the category as well.\n\n:P
663825
Yes, it's evolved.  It might be interesting to you that, though humans have fairly poor hearing, eyesight (though that is a myth) and sense of smell than other animals like dogs, we have a fairly sophisticated sense of taste.  Dogs, for example, have far fewer taste buds than we do, and fewer types as well.  This is likely because we are a very curious species, and can eat almost anything, so the ability to taste a broad range of foods, and detect and remember foods that are toxic, is probably highly important for humans and other omnivores, such as pigs.  Pigs also have a well-developed sense of taste.
616779
Most of the smell of your breath comes from your tongue so a good way to check is to lick the back of your hand and then smell it.
242619
Most of children do that, at some point or other - it has to do first with tasting world through your mouth (all babies do), then with manual dexterity development comes the phase of getting to know your own body and, besides, they are salty, just like tears. Tasting poo and pee seems not to figure here, probably cuz we are genetically hardwired to recognize body excrement as a source of disease. If the experiment persists beyond toddler phase, it is grouped together with biting your fingernails and wetting your bed - all signs of mild neurosis
752059
Your tongue  . (if you're a cat)
257656
Depends on whose mouth and whose tongue
260968
Take a sample of your own skin and fry it, then taste it. or go to cannibalidiot.com and ask them
1081724
Depends on the tongue
791117
Like any structure in an organism, tongues evolved over time through small changes (mutations) which placed each successive individual at a slight advantage within the species.  That individual had some advantage, probably longevity, which allowed for greater success in reproduction.  This allowed the mutation to be passed on to future generations.  The tongue as we know it today, is the result of accumulations of countless mutations over a long period of time.\n\nIn terms of what they might look like in a million years - who knows?  It is pure speculation - can you think of a new 'model' of the tongue that would place an individual at an advantage over other members of the species and allow them to be more successful in terms of reproduction/survival etc..?
111516
There are receptors in your brain that are in charge of sensory feeling of touch. They are on the cortex of the brain and the area that is in charge of sensing touch on your hands and arms are right next to the area that is in charge of sensing touch on your face. It is possible that these two areas are close enough that signals from your arm are igniting centers in your brain that should be igniting when something touches your tongue.
744845
The basic tastes are the commonly recognized types of taste sensed by humans. Humans receive tastes through sensory organs called taste buds or gustatory calyculi, concentrated on the upper surface of the tongue. Scientists describe seven basic tastes: bitter, salty, sour, astringent, sweet, pungent (eg chili), and umami. This last being from a number of recent scientific publications about new basic tastes,[citation needed] also termed savoury (the flavour of certain glutamates). Asian cooking has long recognized umami as a flavour.\n\nThere is scientific dispute as to whether basic tastes exist per se or are simply an overly reductionist concept. There is also philosophical dispute between biochemists, who believe evidence for a chemical reaction in tongue tissue means there is a basic taste, and psychologists, who see taste as much more based on psychological states and experiences.[citation needed]\n\nPsychologists speak more about "flavour profiles" than tastes, based on the ways people report experiencing taste. Such reports and testing tend to show even the classic four basic tastes shading into each other on a spectrum of experience.[