biological factors that might influence the determination of an absolute threshold for sweetness?
480476
"Sweetness" is a brain interpretation of a specific signal, just like pain and pleasure- They are not physical objects that can be measured precisely, because they are subjective sensations.  One measures sweetness by tasting it, or having a population of people taste it, and rate it-you can't chemically analyze the sweetness of something (any more than you can chemically analyze pain in the absence of a person's interpretation of it).  So, since sweetness is a specific signal, generated by activation of specific receptors on specific taste receptors in the tongue, and analyzed by specific regions of the brain, there are a number of biological limitations based on what generates it.  So, number of "sweet" receptors on the taste buds, the number of specific taste buds that contain these receptors, the number of neurons that interpret the signal "sweet", would all be limiting factors.
540577
There are several factors in the sensation of taste.  Part of it is chemical; a rectaion to the molecules with specific receptors in an array along your tounge.  This identifies combinations of sweet, sour, salty, etc..., that you interpret according to patterns established by your brain.  Eg, if you are low on salt often high salt low sweet foods 'taste' good.\n\nSecondly, much of your taste is processed via sensory receptors in the nose.  While the basic groups (salty, etc..) are managed by the tounge, the subtlities and higher resolution taste's come from olifactory responses.  When temperature increases, some chemicals in the mixture of whatever you are eating will travel in air with a greater affinity than others, changing the concentration of molecules that land on olifactory receptors, in effect, changing the taste.\n\nThe third and most significant factor is memory and is a learned condition.  Your brain functions primarily by associations -- if the first time you ate lobster was a beautiful day, this association is likely to be made subconciously each time you eat lobster.  I, for example, remember horking the first time I tasted tequila; as a result I feel like horking again on every subsequent taste.    part of your memory with something like icecream is associated with the cold response -- its very different when warm.\n\nHave you ever took a sip of seomthing and grabbed the wrong thing, finding it disgusting b/c you were expecting something else?  As in you think its lemonade and end up with coke, so you pull away disgusted, even though you might like coke?  This is the power of subconcious effects.
1010654
As far back in American medical history as the Macrobiotic Movement, the concept of a complementarity in the body and foods between an expansive and contractive process, a yin and yang force or quality, or an acidic or alkaline set of realities, has been an accepted reality.  I think it is a fact that all foods have either an alkaline or acidic reaction within the body. The problem is that this is not something that lends itself to empirical testing. One the miracle of digestion begins and "bread becomes blood," there is a profound alchemical transformation of a substances' properties, and this reflects well into the paradoxes you find in acid/alkaline or yin/yang manifestations, e.g. citrus fruit that taste acidic are profoundly alkalinizing to the tissues. Or, milk which tastes sweet soft and alkaline, has a very acidic and hardening effect on the organism. \n\nIn a nut shell, I would assume eating alkaline is predestined in our metabolism, and it is a good idea to exclude the commonly acidic foods that our modern food industry has invented with chemical invention. But the focus shouldn't be on micromanaging numbers...how you feel is essential, and making sure that the intent in the food act is there, that the food is local and organic, and these particularities are far more important than whether one has it the projected number of 7.5 alkalinity, etc.
225050
http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/humanbody/body/articles/senses/tongue_experiment.shtml
869859
positive test doesn't confirm anything,it's a primary test, each sugar has a special test confirming it, sugars are also identified partially with their appearence and taste. Examples:Maltose is HALF sweet but is confimed with osazone test, Fructose is confirmed with Rapid furfural test,sucrose gives negative with fehling but gives a violet colour with H2SO4,etc....
182489
Sensation is simple, a taste of sweetness on the tongue, a feeling of smooth hardness on the skin.  Perception is more complex, like knowing that what you're tasting is chocolate, that what you're feeling is your desk.\n\nLook carefully at how your book makes the distinction.  Almost every psychology text will do it a little differently.
1127009
This would depend on the temperature of the water.  As temperature increases the amount of sugar soluble in the water increases.  Take a look at this link: http://www.shorstmeyer.com/msj/geo130/water/water.html\nfor a graph showing the solubility of sucrose in water over a temperature range of 0 to 100 degrees C.  The range is just under 200g/100ml water at 0 degrees up to 500g/100 ml water at 100 degrees.
550741
I have a theory of my own I have absolutely no way of backing of course.  \n\nCertain people can taste certain chemicals depending on their genetic build.  My theory is that some people can detect certain chemicals within certain foods and others can't due to their genetic makeup, which makes their tastebuds capable of detecting certain chemicals and not detect others, and thus make them like or dislike a particular food.  \n\nIf you can't taste the "yucky" you can't say it's terrible right?  \nThen again, some other person might be able to taste it and not like it...
765430
if the glucose concentration (and osmotic level) is too high, the microorganism that does the respiration cannot exist or metabolize. like a concentrated syrup or honey. it is simply too concentrated to allow microbial growth, get it?
71999
I tried that... 347 it took me. It was a summer day, though. Anyways, I'd ballpark it to around 300-500 licks. It depends on person to person, though.
854976
Things like smoking, alchol, and alot of meat and protene can make you taste a little bitter. You probobly just taste really sweet because you eat alot of vegitables.
997740
Perception, the minimum level of a stimulus that is peceived is the threshold.
213426
Depends on your body type, genetics, diet, etc...\n\nCheck out my site for helpful info.
942613
HMMMM: taste and smell corelate as roughly 80% of taste is scent...but I'd rather loose those than hearing, sight or touch.\n\nI can live without tasting: I may loose a pound or so if not everything taste great\n\nI can live without smelling: not all things with odor are pleasant\n\nI can't live without touching, seeing and hearing my kids...\n\nK
737091
Here's an easy one:\n\ndemonstrate the link between the olfactory and taste senses.\nCut up an onion and an apple\nBlind fold a person and have them eat the apple while you hold the onion on their nose. They will think they are eating an onion.
995415
You'll get various opinions from different individuals, frankly...  You might check the American Diabetes Association for their guidelines--they are what most of us try to run by.\n\nOn the whole, ideally your fasting sugar should be 110 or less, and I like to see people in the 80-100 range most of the time.  I'm willing to settle for anything less than 125, though.  As for the postprandial sugars, I focus on the 2-hours-after-eating (or 2 hour postprandial) sugars.  Prefer to see them below 140 mg/dl; I'll tolerate them less than 160.\n\nIncreasingly, however, I tend to focus on the Hemoglobin A1c value.  That's a measure of the proportion (expressed as a percentage) of the hemoglobin that is tagged with a glucose molecule at a particular site (the 1c site on Hemoglobin A.  DUH!)  Dr. RIchard Guthrie, a decade or two ago, showed that the Hemoglobin A1c correlated very much better with the rapidity of the diabetic damage being caused than anything reasonable you could do with individual sugar readings, or with aggregate calculations of the readings over a couple of months time.\n\nDO NOT take this to indicate that the fasting and postprandial sugars are not of use; they certainly are, but they are of greatest use in recognizing the presence of complicating illnesses (on the whole, you can look at the sugars of a diabetic and use them to get a handle on the presence of an infectious process just like you can use the body temperature), and the presence of patterns in the sugars to guide in the alteration of long vs. short acting insulins to control the sugar.\n\nOK, so I'm longwinded.  I knew that.  Hope this gives you some useful insight!
808481
try API20E or any other commercial available kit. or conventional sugar test recommended by CDC.