Kind: captions
Language: en
[Music]
some kids love to eat broccoli While
others can't stand it I like that green
stuff I want you the broccoli how much
do our jeans determine what we like to
[Music]
eat can they turn otherwise good kids
into picky
eaters if so is is there any way to help
them Bob maroli of the Manel chemical
sensus Center and colleague John Glen
Denning of Barnard College are trying to
find
out with the assistance of a few mice
why are mice useful to you at all do
they have the same tongue as we do well
it's it's it's much smaller
uh the physiology of the mouse's taste
system is similar to ours in many
respects in fact when they they gave
this mouse bitter tasting
water here's what he did okay he's he's
right there just licked it oh and he
clear didn't like it and he's wiping his
face off and he squeaked and he got as
far away as he could yeah he hid in the
corner and he doesn't appear to have any
interest in consuming it ever again ever
again got far away but Bob has devised a
way to change how a mouse perceives
taste we've genetically engineered mice
that are missing key genes in the in the
T cells look what happens when this
genetically engineered Mouse approaches
the same bitter
water he's just drinking he really can't
tell the difference between This Bitter
containing water sugar sweet containing
water or just plain water so to him it's
just water it's just New York tap water
researchers are trying to find out more
about how this Gene works so they can
find a way to temporarily turn it off
this could lead lead to new ways to
block the bitter taste of medicine
especially ones made for
kids and that could make it a whole lot
easier to
swallow for children who won't eat their
vegetables can you foresee a day where
we just give them a pill it'll supress
the bitter Sensations in their pet and
then they'll just eat the broccoli and
the greens I think this is possible you
can imagine kind of like a salt shaker
except it would be an anti- bitter
Shaker you take a plate of greens or a
plate of broccoli put this on it it
would be like a table condiment exactly
any green vegetable is a combination of
amino acids and salts and sweet
carbohydrate and bitter so the picky
eater that's very sensitive to the
bitter will reject it and reject all
that positive food stuff because of the
bitter taste oh so if you suppress just
the bitter accories then the rest of
those flavors rise up and we'll be
appealing there you
go