The Atlantic- Facebook Watch
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For decades now, U. S schools have been trying to get more students excited about science. Kids are expected to learn the latest, most up to date theories. But some of the most popular beliefs have no scientific basis and no place in the classroom. For example, some widely held ideas about the human body are flat out wrong. Take the tongue map, commonly taught in biology class. Turns out it was based on an error. The original diagram showed four separate tastes in different areas. Suite at the tip, better in the back, salty and sour on both sides. The map dates back to in 1901 paper written by a German scientist named David. Hey, Nick, Hey, Nate used volunteers to measure the sensitivity of taste perception around the edges of the tongue. In what he called the taste belt, he found that certain areas have higher or lower sensitivity to taste than others. When hey, Nick reported his findings, he added a line graph to illustrate the results. But this graph let other scientists to mistakenly conclude that the only distinct areas of the tongue corresponded to a particular taste. In the 19 forties, Harvard psychologist Edwin Boring used paintings illustration to create the tongue Mac, and the inaccurate drawing quickly made its way into school textbooks. Microbiologists now know that taste buds are made up of taste cells with receptors that bind to specific molecules. So everything that tastes sweet activates the sweet receptors, and everything that's bitter activates the bitter ones. These receptors are found across all taste areas, including your tongue, the roof of your mouth and the epiglottis. One more thing that makes the tongue map a myth. There's actually 1/5 taste that can detect savory flavors. In 2002 researchers confirmed what a Japanese chemist dubbed Mommy a century before, umami receptors can detect food that contains glue, tannic acid such as meat, cheese and ripe tomatoes. Researchers believe they're even more taste to add to the list, with fat and calcium among the leading contenders. But there has yet to be a consensus. The makeup of the mouth isn't the only thing taught incorrectly. Students learn an introductory biology textbooks that a human sense of smell is nowhere near as good as other mammals, dogs, mice, even elephants are credited with having far superior sniffing powers. This misconception can be tracked back to 1/19 century French scientist named Paul Brocco. Braca studied the human brain and compared it to other mammals. He observed that a human's olfactory bold, the area where smell signals are processed is smaller and flatter than other species. Braca claimed that because of our larger frontal lobes, humans have the brain power to ignore the influence of odors in a way other animals can. Therefore, concluding that smell isn't that important. Scientists blindly followed Braca theory for decades and believed our sense of smell to be inferior to other animals. It turns out every species distinguishes certain sense better than others. For example, humans outclass other animals at detecting certain odors, like chemicals in our own blood and even bananas. Scientists and teachers alike once believed humans were bad, it smelling across the board and could only distinguish 10,000 odors. But new research suggests that's a myth. In a recent study where volunteers sniffed a combination of odors, researchers concluded that humans are capable of distinguishing an average of one trillion smells in biology. Class students are taught that thes senses, smell and taste are two out of five total senses. This turns out to be yet another myth, one that dates back thousands of years to ancient Greece. In his classic work, de anima, Aristotle devotes separate chapters to vision, hearing, touch, smell and taste. But scientists have proved the existence of at least two additional senses, and researchers argue there may be even more than that. For example, appropriate exception is the ability to sense a limb position and movement. This tells you where our bodies are in space. Without it, we'd have to constantly look in the mirror every time we wanted to scratch our back or blow her nose. Appropriate exception is the ability to distinguish your body from the rest of the world. And how about balance? This is our ability to sense body direction and acceleration. Our sense of balance works by communication between our eyes, brain and sensory organs in our inner ears that make up the vestibular system. Researchers believe there are many more senses than the ones we count in school. Others include internal understanding of pain or hunger, as well as external knowledge of temperature or location. Biology is the science that involves the study of life and all living things, so it's important we get this one right. As new science challenges conventional wisdom and shatters old myths, old textbooks need to be updated to.