October 31, 2011 11:58 am EDT

Artificial tongue distinguishes 18 different types of canned tomato

Taste tests are fun -- unless you're in Italy, in which case they're drawn-out and rancorous. That's why scientists in Milan are trying to remove humans from the equation, by using nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy to reveal objective "metabolomic fingerprints" for different foodstuffs instead. In their latest experiment, NMR succeeded in predicting how human testers would judge 18 different canned tomato products, including sensory descriptors such as bitterness, saltiness, "redness" and density. Like Caesar always said, technology that knows a good ragu is technology we can trust.

Artificial tongue distinguishes 18 different types of canned tomato originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 31 Oct 2011 07:58:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

PermalinkMedGadget | J Agric Food Chem ||Comments

Original Link: http://www.engadget.com/2011/10/31/artificial-tongue-distinguishes-18-different-types-of-canned-tom/

View Full Article

Engadget

Engadget is a web magazine with obsessive daily coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronics. Engadget was launched in March of 2004 in partnership with the Weblogs, Inc. Network (WI

More About this Source Visit Engadget