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This is perhaps the best Wikipedia article ever created.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_common_misconceptions

You guys had probably seen it before, but it's been updated quite a bit at least since I last took a look. I dare you to say you didn't hold at least one of those as true.

A popular misconception regarding human sexuality is that men think about sex every seven seconds. In reality, this has not been measured, and as far as researchers can tell, this statistic greatly exaggerates the frequency of sexual thoughts.

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In my experience, this one is actually true though.

bhamv3 said:

In my experience, this one is actually true though.

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The misconception is that it only applies to men.

Bubble181 said:

The misconception is that it only applies to men.

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Ooooooooooooohhh... I learned something today!

I don't know. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sandwiches is pretty solid.

In addition, there are not 4 but 5 primary tastes. In addition to bitter, sour, salty, and sweet, humans have taste receptors for umami, which is a savory or meaty taste.

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Not only is this one highly debated (not every authority agrees that umami belongs on the list), but there are other candidates for a fifth (or beyond) primary taste. Including: metallic, calcium, fat, carbon dioxide and more. There's even argument as to weather temperature should be counted.

figmentPez said:

Not only is this one highly debated (not every authority agrees that umami belongs on the list), but there are other candidates for a fifth (or beyond) primary taste. Including: metallic, calcium, fat, carbon dioxide and more. There's even argument as to weather temperature should be counted.

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Not to mention that some say we should consider each type of receptor as a separate sense - so temperature, pressure, pain, each of the tastes, dark/light vision, colour vision,... are all separate senses - it makes more biological sense, if not mental for us humans who're used to lumping stuff together.

OH YEAH LIKE YOU GUYS KNEW EVERYTHING ON THE LIST!! YOU'RE FOOLING NO ONE!!

Calleja said:

OH YEAH LIKE YOU GUYS KNEW EVERYTHING ON THE LIST!!

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That's a common misconception.

--Patrick

I abortion a common misconception?

I'm sorry.

Calleja said:

OH YEAH LIKE YOU GUYS KNEW EVERYTHING ON THE LIST!! YOU'RE FOOLING NO ONE!!

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I didn't even bother reading most of the list. I just quickly scanned for something I could nit-pick.

Hmm... I would argue that a lot of these aren't commonly held to be true. At least not to anyone who paid attention in school. Like the Columbus one. Or Coca-Cola and Santa. I'm not even sure I've heard that one before. Maybe along the lines of "Coca-Cola helped popularize" more than "invented".

On the other hand, I am glad they put the "leave your a/c on while you're at work to save money" one on there.

fade said:

Hmm... I would argue that a lot of these aren't commonly held to be true. At least not to anyone who paid attention in school. Like the Columbus one. Or Coca-Cola and Santa. I'm not even sure I've heard that one before. Maybe along the lines of "Coca-Cola helped popularize" more than "invented".

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No joke, Coca-Cola ran a whole campaign down here in Mexico giving themselves credit for Santa Claus's current image. Like, they literally had a blurb in their 2 Lt Christmas themed bottles explaining it and everything. This must have been like 12, 15 years ago? But yeah, everyone down here believes that to be true. Seeing it there I thought it was more popular a misconception.

figmentPez said:

Not only is this one highly debated (not every authority agrees that umami belongs on the list), but there are other candidates for a fifth (or beyond) primary taste. Including: metallic, calcium, fat, carbon dioxide and more. There's even argument as to weather temperature should be counted.

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...what the hell does calcium taste like? Or carbon dioxide, for that matter? Isn't CO2 supposed to be tasteless/odorless?

Wahad said:

...what the hell does calcium taste like? Or carbon dioxide, for that matter? Isn't CO2 supposed to be tasteless/odorless?

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Tip of the Tongue: Humans May Taste at Least Six Flavors
"Calcium clearly has a taste, however, and counterintuitively most mice (and humans) don't like it. People have described it as sort of bitter and chalky – even at very low concentrations. "

"That familiar tingling was thought to result from bubbles bursting on the tongue, and had therefore been consigned to the touch category. 'It's tricky because CO2 was always considered a trigeminal stimulus,' said Tordoff."

The article is quite interesting. In short, there are a whole lot more than just four types of receptors on the tongue, and we don't know what triggers most of them, or what sensations being triggered causes. There's a lot of confusion over which sensations are physical stimulation of the touch nervous system, and what's chemcials bonding with receptors. I don't pretend to actually follow all the details, but I imagine in a couple decades we'll know a lot more (and have some fascinating, and a little scary, new food additives to show for it.)

I could definitely see (well, taste) "metallic" as being a flavor.

There's plenty of "flavors" that it's hard to say are specifically coded for with dedicated receptors, as opposed to interpolated between multiple receptors (our perception of the color yellow, or tactile discernment of hot v. cold, as examples). I'm not sure I would call the calcium taste anything other than "rock," though. I've definitely noticed the taste/smell of a coral skeleton or conch shell, for instance, but I ascribed that to the lingering taste of the Sea.

And let's not forget the huuuuuuge part that our sense of smell plays in the perception of flavors.

--Patrick

Soon it'll be a common misconception that any of these are common misconceptions.

Holy Hannah,

Best article ever

Holy Hannah is not the best article ever. Get out of here.

Yeah well, you're like a simile

Allen's eyes rolled so hard I felt it here in Michigan.

PatrThom said:

There's plenty of "flavors" that it's hard to say are specifically coded for with dedicated receptors,

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I'm not sure if you're aware, but taste and flavor are not the same thing in the culinary world, and I assume the scientific as well. Taste is strictly what comes from the taste-buds on the tongue. (Saltly, sweet, sour and bitter; with other tastes being debated.) Flavor, on the other hand, is the combination of taste, smell, mouth feel, temperature, appearance, etc. That's why there's such an argument over what is taste and what isn't. It's easy to isolate the four major tastes, because they're triggered strongly, and to the exclusion of other tastes, by common compounds. Salt, sugar, acids and I'm not sure what the simplest bitter compound is.

It's previously been assumed that umami was just a type of salty, and some still argue that point. Other candidates, like metallic and carbon dioxide, are assumed to be part of mouth feel, a touch sensation rather than a taste. The article explains why there's reason to suspect that those have specific chemical receptors on the tongue that would classify them as taste rather than touch.

figmentPez said:

I'm not sure if you're aware, but taste and flavor are not the same thing in the culinary world, and I assume the scientific as well.

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Kati is the one who went to food school, I just get to enjoy the fallout. My most recent fascination came about after listening to this podcast about a fellow who had to give up eating and drinking...for three whole months, and what that did to his sense of taste.

--Patrick

PatrThom said:

Kati is the one who went to food school, I just get to enjoy the fallout. My most recent fascination came about after listening to this podcast about a fellow who had to give up eating and drinking...for three whole months, and what that did to his sense of taste.

--Patrick

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Wait, what? Did he absorb nutrients from the air?

bhamv3 said:

Wait, what? Did he absorb nutrients from the air?

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The podcast is only 20min long. You should listen to it. It will answer all your questions.

--Patrick

PatrThom said:

The podcast is only 20min long. You should listen to it. It will answer all your questions.

--Patrick

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I'm at work and I can't listen to it right now and I want to know the answer right nooooooooowwwww!!

Instant gratification is acceptable in the satisfaction of curiosity and the seeking of knowledge, I've always believed that.

bhamv3 said:

I want to know the answer right nooooooooowwwww!!

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Well, then just click on the link but don't listen to the podcast. The blurb should be enough, especially if you then click on the link that leads to the book he wrote about his experience, or Google his name, etc.

--Patrick

PatrThom said:

Kati is the one who went to food school, I just get to enjoy the fallout. My most recent fascination came about after listening to this podcast about a fellow who had to give up eating and drinking...for three whole months, and what that did to his sense of taste.

--Patrick

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I love Radiolab.


Dammit, bhamv, you SHOULD listen to it, because the show is fantastic. Even if not now.

Radiolab is the BEST FUCKING THING EVER

Wa

stienman said:

Allen's eyes rolled so hard I felt it here in Michigan.

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Was it like a disturbance in the force.

I hadn't considered that some people might not have experienced this, but calcium definitely has a flavor, and as somebody mentioned, it is definitely bitter and chalky.

I had super messed up teeth as a kid, so I had a lot of braces work and teeth reconfiguring, which included sanding down the edges of two of my front teeth, which definitely resulted in a terrible, terrible, awful, no good bitter and chalky taste.

Also, metallic depends! If it's "tin foil touching a tooth filling" taste, then I could see that being a "touch" sense, because you really don't quite taste it, but it's there.

But, I was a fucked up kid and I had this skeleton key that I used to put in my mouth because I liked the taste. Like, every day, for a very long time.

I don't know why my parents didn't stop me.

After a youth wasted playing lazer-tag, I can tell you that carbon dioxide definitely has a taste/smell. At least, dry ice does.

I miss lazer tag

doomdragon6 said:

I hadn't considered that some people might not have experienced this, but calcium definitely has a flavor, and as somebody mentioned, it is definitely bitter and chalky.

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Calcium definitely has a taste. I think I remember my husband telling me that the water in Italy had a high calcium content. It was definitely odd tasting when I drank it (but I also had the flu so my sense of taste was off to begin with).