Hi, I’m Linda. Thanks so much for checking out the February edition of my Linda Be Learning newsletter. If you are just discovering me, I encourage you to check out my website and my YouTube channel to learn more about the work I do in the field of learning technology and innovation.

As I mentioned last month, my background in learning is very, very broad, and that in 2026, the newsletter themes will examine technology fashioned after the sensory and/or perception abilities of humans, animals, and sometimes even plants, highlighting how machine learning often is a poor mimic relative to the complexities of how sentient beings learn.

In the February 2025 edition of this newsletter, I combined my professional work with one of my life’s great passions, and that is growing my own everything. In that month’s edition, we explored technologies, teachers, and learning practices around the restorative practice of gardening. Part of why I like to grow my own food is because, yes, it’s healthier for you, but it also tastes better. I got my first Easy Bake Oven when I was four years old, and graduated to the regular oven less than two years later. I love to cook, and part of becoming a skilled cook is refining your palate, aka, your sense of taste, what is formally referred to as gustation.

So this month, we’re going to explore gustation, how humans experience and learn how to taste, compared to how animals, plants, and technology experience gustatory sensations and perceptions. As you will see, when it comes to humans, your sense of taste is not an isolated sensory experience, you can actually learn “how to taste,” and assistive technology can be used to improve your ability to sense, perceive and discriminate stimuli based on its taste.

I am always discovering and exploring new tech. It’s usually:

This month, the tech I discovered falls into NONE of those categories, because I didn’t initially realize what’s been going on in this niche area of tech. And what I discovered is pretty freaking cool! We’re going to look at a neuromorphic device that mimics our sense of taste, an artificial gustatory system created by scientists in Beijing.

Relative to vision and hearing, the sense of taste is more difficult to digitize. Highly specialized artificial tongues have been created targeting sweetness, chocolate, beer, wine and whisky, but now researchers in Beijing have developed a more generalist graphene oxide “tongue” that doesn’t just detect chemicals, it learns them. During laboratory tests, the system identified sour, salty, bitter, and sweet with nearly 99% accuracy, demonstrating that characteristics of taste can be captured in digital form.

The artificial gustatory system created by researchers at the National Center for Nanoscience and Technology in Beijing uses layered graphene oxide membranes that not only sense chemicals in solution, but process the signals directly, echoing how biological taste buds and neurons work together. Unlike most artificial senses built from solid-state electronics, taste must operate in liquid, where ions - not electrons - can carry the signal. The team tackled that challenge with a graphene oxide ionic sensory memristive device (GO-ISMD).

When tested with voltage pulses, the device behaves much like synapses in the human brain: it can strengthen or weaken its response, show memory effects, and even remember two signals that arrive close together. The thicker the membrane, the longer this memory lasts; in some cases up to about 140 seconds, far beyond what simple ion movement would predict. To turn those dynamics into perception, the group used reservoir computing.

Using the biological taste system as inspiration, the team developed a smart system using their device to categorize chemicals based on their flavors. The system has three key components: a sensing input, a reservoir layer, and a single-layer fully connected neural network. The sensing module detects flavors and converts them into electrical signals, which are then processed into unique digital patterns in the reservoir layer. These patterns are fed into the single-layer fully connected neural network. The neural network is then trained on a computer to recognize these digital patterns and save the key parameters, effectively giving the system a “memory” of different flavors it can later recall (or, more accurately, match to sample, as behavior analysts would say).

The researchers tested four representative tastants in their proof-of-concept: sour (acetic acid), salty (NaCl), bitter (MgSO₄), and sweet (lead acetate). Signals from the device fed into the trained neural network achieved about 98.5% accuracy in distinguishing the tastants, with binary test accuracies ranging from 75% to 90% depending on the sample. Even beverages such as coffee, Coke, and their mixtures could be classified with strong performance.

By combining sensing and computing in one aqueous device, the graphene oxide system marks a notable step for biomimetic gustation and neuromorphic engineering, as well as hints at future tools that may extend, or even reconstruct, the sense of taste.

Despite these successes, the authors emphasize that this is still a proof-of-concept demonstration. The current setup is noted as bulky, requiring large amounts of energy to function, and further miniaturization and circuit integration will be required before such systems are practical outside the lab. Note that this is how scientists talk about their findings versus the hypey language used in the shorts I shared.

This technology is an excellent example of bridging brain-inspired computing, chemical detection, and biologically-inspired systems, which happens more in tech coming out of Asia compared to the laggards in Silicon Valley. If Western Tech Bros could humble themselves enough to stop with their AGI and outer space fantasies and instead turn their attention to enhancing power efficiency, integrating multi-sensor arrays, and developing compatible neuromorphic hardware (you should know who I’m referring to here), we could see truly transformative applications in healthcare, robotics, and environmental monitoring within the next decade.

If you are interested in diving deeper into this research, here is the original study.

Okay, digital classification of taste and machines learning new flavors based on chemical training data are both pretty cool. But what if it were possible to taste something remotely?

Now you might ask yourself, why would you want to do that? Beyond gaming and immersive experiences, this kind of a breakthrough could enhance accessibility for individuals with sensory impairments and deepen our understanding of how the brain processes taste.

Scientists from Dalian University of Technology, the National University of Singapore, and Tsinghua University teamed up to develop e-Taste, a novel technology that digitally replicates taste in virtual environments. The system uses chemical sensors and wireless chemical dispensers to capture and transmit taste data remotely, enabling users to experience sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and umami flavors.

The sensors recognize molecules like glucose and glutamate, the chemicals that represent the five basic tastes of sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and umami. Once captured via electrical signals, the data are wirelessly passed to a remote device for replication. 

Field testing done by researchers at The Ohio State University confirmed the device’s ability to digitally simulate a range of taste intensities, while still offering variety and safety for the user. They recognized that the chemical dimension in the current VR and AR realm is relatively underrepresented, especially in terms of gustation and olfaction (sense of smell). This next-generation system could fill that gap.

The system, whose development was inspired by previous biosensor work of one of the researchers, utilizes an actuator with two parts: an interface to the mouth and a small electromagnetic pump. The pump connects to a liquid channel of chemicals that vibrates when an electric charge passes through it, pushing the solution through a special gel layer into the mouth of the subject. 

Depending on the length of time that the solution interacts with this gel layer, the intensity and strength of any given taste can easily be adjusted. Using digital instruction, you can also choose to release one or several different tastes simultaneously so that they can form different sensations. 

Taste is a subjective sense that can change from one moment to another. Yet this complex feeling is the product of two of the body’s chemical sensing systems working in tandem to ensure what you eat is safe and nutritious, the gustation and the olfactory senses. Taste and smell are strongly related to human emotion and memory, so any truly useful assistive tech needs to learn to capture, control and store all that information. 

Despite the difficulty involved in replicating similar taste sensations for a majority of people, researchers found that in human trials, participants could distinguish between different sour intensities in the liquids generated by the system with an accuracy rate of about 70%. 

Further tests assessing e-Taste’s ability to immerse players in a virtual food experience also analyzed its long-range capabilities, showing that remote tasting could be initiated in Ohio from as far away as California.

Another experiment involved subjects trying to identify five food options they perceived, whether it was lemonade, cake, fried egg, fish soup or coffee. 

While these results open up opportunities to pioneer new VR experiences, this team’s findings are especially significant because they could potentially provide scientists with a more intimate understanding of how the brain processes sensory signals from the mouth. Plans to enhance the technology revolve around further miniaturizing the system and improving the system’s compatibility with different chemical compounds in food that produce taste sensations.

Beyond helping to build a better and more dynamic gaming experience, the study notes that the work could be useful in promoting accessibility and inclusivity in virtual spaces for individuals with disabilities, like those with traumatic brain injuries or Long Covid, which brought gustatory loss to mainstream attention. 

Here’s the original research if you’re interested in learning more, or check out this article from Scientific American.

Gustatory technology refers to the engineering and design of interfaces and devices that capture, simulate, augment, or replicate human taste sensations and perceptions. Using chemical, electrical, thermal, or cross-modal stimulation methods, these systems enable the integration of gustatory experiences into virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), and multisensory human-food interactions. As we’ve seen in the previous segments, this emerging field addresses the chemical dimension of gustatory sensation and perception, which has historically been underexplored compared to visual, auditory, and haptic technologies in human-machine interfaces (HMIs).

The concept of gustatory technology traces its roots to the 18th century, when Swiss mathematician Johann Georg Sulzer first observed an acidic taste sensation by placing the tip of his tongue between pieces of lead and silver, inadvertently creating a primitive galvanic cell that produced a weak electric current. This accidental discovery of electrical taste stimulation laid the groundwork for later explorations into how electricity could elicit gustatory responses, predating formal scientific investigations into bioelectric phenomena.

In the 19th century, experiments with electrical stimulation expanded through galvanism, notably by Italian physicist Giovanni Aldini, who in 1804 publicly demonstrated the effects of electric currents on human tissues using Voltaic piles, stimulating facial muscles and nerves in executed criminals to mimic vital signs. Although primarily focused on reanimation and electrotherapy, Aldini's work indirectly advanced understanding of neural and sensory responses.

Mid-20th-century developments shifted toward systematic study of electrical taste, with researchers in the 1950s and 1960s exploring intermittent electrical pulses on the human tongue to identify thresholds for sour, salty, and metallic sensations. Japanese scientists from Kyushu University began conceptualizing artificial tastes during this period, with early research in the 1960s exploring dynamic electrical properties of lipid membranes for taste sensing; practical sensors later emerged.

The late 20th century marked a pivotal shift with the advent of bioelectronic devices, exemplified by the first multichannel taste sensor patented in 1989 by Kiyoshi Toko and colleagues at Kyushu University, utilizing lipid/polymer membranes to detect changes in membrane potential for basic tastes like sweetness, bitterness, saltiness, sourness, and umami. This first "electronic tongue" represented a key milestone in gustatory technology, enabling objective taste analysis and spawning commercial systems like the TS-5000Z in 1993, which quantified taste qualities on a logarithmic scale akin to human perception (or so they say).

Entering the 21st century, digital taste interfaces proliferated, with projects like the Taste+ device developed around 2011 by researchers including Nimesha Ranasinghe at the National University of Singapore (with collaborations involving Tokyo Institute of Technology influences in sensory HCI), employing controlled electrical pulses via utensils such as spoons and bottles to enhance sourness, saltiness, and bitterness in food and beverages. Developments in the late 1990s and beyond integrated voltammetric and potentiometric methods into electronic tongue systems for taste analysis in food science. These innovations bridged early electrical curiosities to contemporary digital gustation, emphasizing reproducible sensory manipulation.

Despite the progress made, the field is not without its technical hurdles, challenges and ethical considerations. Sensor accuracy and data processing are still technical hurdles. Developing sensors that can reliably mimic human taste, not just categorize it, is a complex engineering challenge. Taste and smell often work in tandem, and multisensory inputs produce vast amounts of data that must be processed in real-time, requiring advanced machine learning algorithms and powerful computing hardware.

Ethical concerns include privacy issues, accessibility and equity. The ability to detect or analyze chemical compositions raises questions about how personal data is collected and used. Ensuring that these technologies are both accessible to and developed for a wide range of users, rather than remaining limited to elite institutions, is also crucial.

As scientists continue to refine gustatory technologies, the potential applications are virtually limitless. Imagine virtual cooking classes where you can taste the dishes as you prepare them, or enabling your colleague across the country to enjoy the taste of a carrot you just pulled out of your garden. In healthcare, these technologies could revolutionize diagnostics and patient care, and perhaps even help people make better food choices and eat smarter. For people with special dietary needs, like people with diabetes, gustatory technologies can help control their blood sugar levels while still satisfying gourmet preferences. In food safety, these systems can help detect spoilage and other contaminants before that food hits the market. In entertainment, entirely new forms of storytelling could be created.

While challenges remain, the progress made so far shows that integrating taste into computing isn’t just a futuristic idea—it’s an achievable goal. As these innovations mature, they promise to deepen our connection with technology, making digital experiences more human, intuitive, and immersive.

Sensation and perception are subfields within the field and academic study of biological psychology as well as in anatomy and physiology within the field of biology. When talking about human taste from this perspective, we usually refer to gustation, which is responsible for our ability to taste.

The gustatory system, commonly known as our sense of taste, allows us to distinguish between various chemical compounds in food and beverages. This intricate system acts as a short-range detection mechanism, requiring direct contact with substances to perceive them. It serves a fundamental role in guiding food choices, helping us identify nutritious options while simultaneously alerting us to potentially harmful or spoiled substances. Our ability to perceive taste influences daily eating habits, nutritional intake, and overall quality of life.

The tongue’s surface is covered with small, visible bumps called papillae, which house taste buds. There are four types of lingual papillae: fungiform, foliate, circumvallate, and filiform. While filiform papillae are the most numerous and give the tongue its rough texture, they do not contain taste buds. Fungiform papillae, shaped like mushrooms, are found mostly on the dorsal surface and sides of the tongue. Foliate papillae appear as ridges and grooves on the posterior lateral borders of the tongue, and circumvallate papillae, typically 7 to 12 in number, form a V-shaped row at the back of the tongue.

Within these papillae, taste buds are located, each containing 50-100 taste receptor cells. These cells detect chemicals in food and drinks. Each taste bud also contains supporting and basal cells, which develop into new taste receptor cells, replacing older ones with a lifespan of approximately two weeks. The taste cells feature microvilli, small finger-like extensions that project into a taste pore, where tastants interact with receptors on the cell surface.

When tastants, which are chemical compounds dissolved in saliva, enter the taste pore, they bind to specific receptors or ion channels on the microvilli of the taste receptor cells. This binding triggers a series of events within the taste receptor cell, leading to the generation of an electrical signal, a process known as transduction. Salt and sour taste cells use ion channels to depolarize and release serotonin, while bitter, sweet, and umami taste cells rely on G-protein coupled receptors and second messengers, which open ATP channels.

These electrical signals are then transmitted from the taste receptor cells to afferent nerve fibers that synapse with them. Taste information from the tongue and other parts of the oral cavity travels through three specific cranial nerves. The facial nerve (Cranial Nerve VII) carries taste signals from the anterior two-thirds of the tongue. The glossopharyngeal nerve (Cranial Nerve IX) transmits taste information from the posterior one-third of the tongue. The vagus nerve (Cranial Nerve X) relays taste signals from the epiglottis, soft palate, and other areas of the oral cavity and pharynx.

All three cranial nerves converge and enter the brainstem at the medulla, synapsing in a region called the nucleus of the solitary tract. From this point, the taste information is primarily processed on the same side of the brain from which it originated. Neurons in the brainstem then project to the ventral posterior medial nucleus of the thalamus. The thalamus acts as a relay station, sending these signals to the primary gustatory cortex, where the conscious perception of taste occurs.

Humans can perceive five basic tastes: sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and umami. Each of these tastes is triggered by different chemical compounds and serves a distinct biological purpose. Sweetness is typically associated with sugars and carbohydrates, indicating energy-rich foods that are beneficial for survival and provide fast energy. Specific receptors detect sweet compounds.

Sour taste is evoked by acids, which release hydrogen ions in solution, and is detected by specific receptors. This taste can signal the presence of unripe or spoiled foods. Saltiness is primarily triggered by salts, especially sodium chloride, and is detected by specific receptors. A moderate salty taste is appealing as sodium is an important electrolyte for bodily functions, while high levels can indicate potential harm.

Bitter taste is activated by a wide range of compounds, including many alkaloids and glycosides, and is mediated by specific receptors. This taste often serves as a warning sign, as many toxic substances in nature are bitter, prompting rejection. Umami, often described as savory, is triggered by amino acids like glutamate, commonly found in protein-rich foods such as meats, cheeses, and mushrooms. Specific receptors detect umami, which signals the presence of protein and can also indicate fermented foods.

The perception of “flavor” extends beyond the five basic tastes and is a complex integration of multiple sensory inputs. The olfactory system, or sense of smell, plays a significant role, contributing approximately 80% to what we perceive as flavor. When food is chewed, volatile organic compounds are released and travel to the olfactory receptors, combining with taste signals to create a rich flavor experience. This explains why holding your nose can diminish the overall flavor of food.

Other sensory inputs also contribute to the overall flavor experience. Texture, or mouthfeel, refers to the physical sensations of food in the mouth, such as creaminess, crunchiness, or grittiness. This tactile feedback, sensed by specialized receptors in the mouth, can enhance or alter taste perception; for instance, creamy textures can amplify sweetness. Temperature also affects how flavors are perceived, with warmer foods often releasing more aromas and sometimes tasting sweeter or more bitter. Visual cues, such as the color and appearance of food, can also influence our expectations and perception of flavor.

Unlike touch, vision, audition, or olfaction, which function in diverse behavioral contexts, the sense of taste evolved primarily to serve as a dominant regulator and driver of feeding behavior. Gustatory systems detect nutritionally relevant and harmful compounds in food and trigger innate behaviors leading to acceptance or rejection of potential food sources. Taste, therefore, is a powerful system with a similar biological function across organisms, which begs the question, do different animals experience taste differently?

Have you ever wondered how does your dog experiences taste?

What about cats?

What about birds?

What about ocean animals?

And why do these five animals have such an incredible sense of taste?

So, in case you’re still wondering, do animals experience taste the same way humans do?

As we’ve seen, the mechanism of taste involves soluble chemicals. When some plants are under attack, they release a variety of chemicals to warn their neighbors. Some of these chemicals are gases, which also work as airborne messengers. These gas molecules diffuse into other plants through the pores on the surface of their leaves, dissolve in the water inside, and then bind to a specific receptor, thus triggering the leaf’s defensive response. This is literally plants tasting danger!

Plants, though lacking a brain, exhibit sensitivity and responsiveness akin to the reactions seen in the Venus Fly Trap, albeit on a smaller scale. They navigate their environment using electrical currents and possess fundamental senses that allow them to react to touch, recognize sounds, and engage in behaviors reflective of their surroundings. This includes defending territory, evading threats, seeking nourishment, and even trapping prey. Unique chemical receptors enable plants to taste nutrients like nitrates and ammonium salts as their roots dig deep into the soil.

Plants also emit and respond to specific chemicals, such as methyl, which can be tasted by birds without any adverse effects. While mammals recognize five senses—sight, touch, smell, hearing, and taste—discussion around plants suggests they possess analogous abilities. For instance, plants can sense light wavelengths, especially red and blue, thanks to protein pigments that react to these frequencies. Evidence implies that plants have a form of sentience, allowing them to “see” light and engage with their environment intricately.

Additionally, plants utilize chemical senses to “taste” their surroundings, adapting to acquire necessary nutrients and avoid hazards. Many vegetables offer sweet flavors, thanks to starches digestible to humans; this taste experience is interlinked with smell, enabling plants to identify threats, droughts, and even recognize fellow plants.

Root systems allow plants to secrete substances essential for nutrient absorption, functioning as taste sensors in their subterranean environment. Despite producing their food through photosynthesis, plants exhibit taste and smell senses similar to animals. Recent studies suggest that plants can even “listen”, revealing a complex sensory world where they respond to various stimuli. Thus, plants possess unique adaptations reflecting a distinct yet sophisticated form of sensory perception.

Plants may seem passive, but science now shows they are anything but. Beneath their still surfaces, plants actively sense and respond to their world, employing chemical detection strategies that often echo the act of tasting. From sniffing out vital soil nutrients to recognizing the chemical fingerprints of pests, plants use an astonishing array of sensory tools to survive and flourish.

Let’s start with a plant’s roots, which detect nutrients and chemicals. Beneath the soil, plant roots function as remarkably sensitive detectors, constantly sampling their surroundings. These roots “taste” for essential elements like water, minerals, and even recognize toxic compounds, helping the plant navigate complex underground environments. For instance, maize roots can sense patches rich in nitrogen, prompting rapid root growth in that direction for maximum nutrient uptake. This chemical awareness allows plants to thrive and avoid dangers lurking below

Now let’s consider a plant’s leaves. When insects nibble on leaves, plants can “taste” specific chemicals found in the herbivore’s saliva. This remarkable ability triggers a surge of defensive responses, like producing bitter compounds or potent toxins to deter further feeding. Tomato plants are especially skilled at this, swiftly ramping up their chemical arsenal after an attack. You may have notice a slight rash on your skin when you’re working with tomatoes without wearing gloves - those are the tomato’s chemical defenses in action. Amazingly, some plants can even send chemical signals to warn their neighbors of danger.

A plant’s flowers also assist. Flowers possess the surprising ability to detect chemical traces left by visiting pollinators. For example, certain orchids can “taste” the remnants left by bees and cleverly adjust their nectar quality for future visitors. By sensing these subtle cues, flowers manage their resources wisely, ensuring the right pollinators return time and again. This smart adaptation boosts pollination success while conserving valuable energy.

Seeds even have these abilities, sensing germination cues. Many seeds stay dormant until they “taste” precise environmental cues like moisture, chemicals from smoke, or temperature shifts. This sensory ability ensures seeds sprout only when conditions are just right. For example, lodgepole pine seeds are adapted to fire—only germinating after exposure to smoke, which signals a clear forest floor and ideal growth opportunities. This clever strategy helps maximize survival in challenging environments.

And finally, plant shoots communicate with microbes in the soil. Plant shoots possess an impressive ability to detect chemical signals from both helpful microbes and harmful pathogens. For instance, legume roots can “taste” special molecules released by nitrogen-fixing bacteria, which sparks a mutually beneficial partnership. On the flip side, plants also sense chemicals from threatening microbes, allowing them to activate targeted immune responses. This sophisticated chemical communication helps plants build alliances and defend themselves, shaping their health and growth.

Check out this video to learn more about the hidden senses of plants.

Our journey started by looking at gustatory technology. We saw that from that perspective, computers discern taste through categorizing and matching to sample, based on the five dominant flavor categories used to analyze gustation from a human perspective. But gustation, the sensory and perceptive process involving taste, plays a vital role in our dietary choices, distinct from the physiological urge to consume when hungry. People are inclined to choose foods based on personal preference, what they find most appealing. So while researchers’ ability to mimic the intricacies of the gustatory process, creating sensors that convert chemical information normally found on the tongue into electrical signals, is impressive, it doesn’t take into account the psychological aspects of taste that humans experience.

That is, until a group of researchers at Penn State started to introduce the idea of emotional intelligence, using machine learning, to explore the psychological desires involved in gustation and food choice selection. The researchers' upcoming goal is to expand the electronic tongue's taste range, emulating the human ability to discern subtle differences in tastes.

You can read the original study here.

People who grow their own food know how freshness impacts flavor. That’s why cooking with homegrown produce tastes infinitely better than when you use produce bought in a grocery store, or even at a farmer’s market, a point discussed in this recent conversation with master gardener and chef, Jenn Ponder - I featured Jenn as one of the recommended gardening coaches in the February 2025 edition of this newletter, and brought her back for this conversation.

You can learn how to garden and grow your own food. You can also learn how to improve your cooking skills by improving your palate, your ability to taste the food you’re cooking to determine how flavorful or palatable that food is. People who cook a lot or professionally know the importance of tasting food as it’s being prepared.

Here are some tips for developing your palate and improving your flavor detection skills.

As I have discussed in the April 2025 edition of this newsletter, in addition to the work I do with Linda B Learning, I also have an extensive fitness and athletic training background. I wanted to build YouTube for fitness training way back in 2001, because I recognized early on how much a visual medium like online video would impact people’s ability to make connections, workout with each other and share knowledge with other people all over the world.

But YouTube came along not too far afterwards, and in 2009 I created my Fit Mind-Body Conditioning channel. This year I have revived that work and am offering two live classes each month, broadcast live on YouTube.

On the Full Moon, we do yang energy workouts. So far, those have been step and strength workouts, but other formats may make appearances as the year progresses. During the New Moon, the focus is on yin energy, so yoga and other mind-body practices are featured during those lives.

Our next offering, New Moon in Aquarius Yoga Practice, goes live on YouTube at 7 pm PST on February 17, 2026, if you’d like to join us.

Be sure to subscribe to the channel and click notifications to be notified when we go live, or when other new channel content drops.

That’s all for now. I hope you found this edition focused on gustation tasty!

See you next month!