logo
episode-header-image
Mar 2024
17m 30s

Science Unlocks The Power Of Flavor In ‘...

SCIENCE FRIDAY AND WNYC STUDIOS
About this episode
In her new book, Dr. Arielle Johnson explains how and what we taste with chemistry. 
Up next
Today
The Largest US Particle Collider Stops Its Collisions
The Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC), the largest particle collider in the United States, collided its last particles in early February. RHIC is a massive accelerator ring and set of instruments based at New York’s Brookhaven National Laboratory, and was designed to acceler ... Show More
12m 54s
Feb 6
Olympic Ski Mountaineering, And Mountain Goat Climbing Feats
This year’s Winter Olympics feature a new event called “skimo,” or ski mountaineering. The racing event involves periods of skiing uphill using “skins” for traction, sprinting uphill on foot, and a downhill ski slalom to the finish. Mountaineering historian Peter Hansen joins Hos ... Show More
18m 56s
Feb 5
Why Worry About My Data If I Have Nothing To Hide?
As ICE cracks down in Minneapolis and across the country, reporters and privacy advocates have drawn attention to how the agency is using technology: scanning people’s faces without consent, using private health records to make arrests, tracking people’s location in real time wit ... Show More
16m 7s
Recommended Episodes
Nov 12
How Science Can Hack Flavor
Will eating mint cancel out the feeling of spice in your mouth? How do you manipulate aroma compounds to mimic the taste of lemon? When it comes to the science of flavor, there is no shortage of questions to ask. On this episode, Dr. Samantha Yammine is joined by renowned flavor ... Show More
30m 20s
Feb 2025
How Flavor Has Guided Human History & The Threat of Pseudoscience - SYSK Choice
Modern kitchen freezers are actually cruel to ice cream and other frozen foods. This episode begins by explaining why this is and why there is often ice crystals on top of your ice cream and how to prevent them. Source: Professor Richard Hartel author of the book Ice Cream (https ... Show More
49m 42s
May 2024
How You Can Taste Food Like A Flavor Chemist
<p>"Natural flavors” show up on ingredient lists for all kinds of foods. But what does that mean exactly? We get a peek into the secretive science of flavoring when we talk with Marie Wright of ADM, who’s created more than 1,000 flavors in her 30+ years as a flavor chemist. She e ... Show More
32m 9s
Sep 2022
Focus – How We Taste
How do we taste? What evolutionary benefit is there to tasting bitter and sour? And why should you think about wearing noise-cancelling headphones on planes if you want to enjoy your food?      In this Focus episode of How We’re Wired, join producer Dr Eva Higginbotham as she unc ... Show More
26m 58s
Jul 2024
The Science of Flavor with Arielle Johnson
<p>What is flavor? Neil deGrasse Tyson and co-hosts Chuck Nice and Gary O’Reilly explore the science of what makes some foods tastier than others, what is “umami,” and how flavor changed in the 20th century with food scientist Arielle Johnson.</p><p>NOTE: StarTalk+ Patrons can li ... Show More
54m 22s
Jun 2025
The Chemistry of Food & Taste | Dr. Harold McGee
Dr. Harold McGee, PhD, is a renowned author on the topics of food chemistry and culinary science. He explains how cooking methods, types of cookware and temperature can be used to transform food and drink flavors and presents simple but powerful ways to improve nutrient availabil ... Show More
2h 13m
Feb 2025
How umami blew up taste
For thousands of years, there have been four basic tastes recognized across cultures. But thanks to Kumiko Ninomiya (a.k.a. the Umami Mama), scientists finally accepted a fifth. Could there be even more? (First published in 2022.) Guests: Kumiko Ninomiya, biochemist and former di ... Show More
36m 18s
Jan 2025
Steven Shapin, "Eating and Being: A History of Ideas about Our Food and Ourselves" (U Chicago Press, 2024)
What we eat, who we are, and the relationship between the two. Eating and Being: A History of Ideas about Our Food and Ourselves (University of Chicago Press, 2024) is a history of Western thinking about food, eating, knowledge, and ourselves. In modern thought, eating is about w ... Show More
42m 31s
Mar 2024
Eat This, Not That: The Surprising Science of Personalized Nutrition (encore)
This episode, we've got the exclusive on the preliminary results of the world's largest personalized nutrition experiment. Genetic epidemiologist Tim Spector launched the study, called PREDICT, to answer a simple but important question: do we each respond to different foods diffe ... Show More
57m 30s
Jan 2025
Steven Shapin, "Eating and Being: A History of Ideas about Our Food and Ourselves" (U Chicago Press, 2024)
What we eat, who we are, and the relationship between the two. Eating and Being: A History of Ideas about Our Food and Ourselves (University of Chicago Press, 2024) is a history of Western thinking about food, eating, knowledge, and ourselves. In modern thought, eating is about w ... Show More
42m 31s