Flavor-Enhancing Spoons and Chopsticks Could Make Food Taste Better

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January 10, 2023

Dear Reader, The taste of food is not just about its ingredients. Factors like the material, size and texture of cutlery can also affect how you perceive a bite. Now researchers are taking advantage of that fact to develop new spoons and chopsticks that can enhance the sweetness or saltiness of your meal.

Sophie Bushwick, Associate Editor, Technology @sophiebushwick

Engineering Flavor-Enhancing Spoons and Chopsticks Could Make Food Taste Better New types of cutlery can enhance flavors such as sweetness or saltiness for a more satisfying meal By Saugat Bolakhe

Quantum Computing Are Quantum Computers about to Break Online Privacy? A new algorithm is probably not efficient enough to crack current encryption keys—but that's no reason for complacency, researchers say By Davide Castelvecchi,Nature magazine

Artificial Intelligence ChatGPT Explains Why AIs like ChatGPT Should Be Regulated We asked the text-generating AI ChatGPT to talk about its own flaws By Sophie Bushwick,Madhusree Mukerjee

Engineering Mighty Morphin' Turtle Robot Goes Amphibious by Shifting Leg Shape A turtle-inspired robot can morph its legs to move from land to water and back By Sophie Bushwick

Fossil Fuels Record-High Temperatures across Europe Ease Energy Crisis Imposed by Russia's War Extreme heat has provided some relief from Europe's punishing energy crunch. Trouble looms, though, as it continues to seek alternative energy sources By Chelsea Harvey,Sara Schonhardt,E&E News

Renewable Energy Rusty Batteries Could Greatly Improve Grid Energy Storage Iron-air batteries have a "reversible rust" cycle that could store and discharge energy for far longer and at less cost than lithium-ion technology By John Fialka,E&E News

Materials Science Mistletoe's Ridiculously Clingy Seeds Could Make a Biological Glue The festive parasite mistletoe's sticky prowess explained By Jack Tamisiea

Conservation Saving Coral Reefs with Dental Tech Dental scanners could help researchers diagnose stressed-out baby corals By Susan Cosier

FROM THE STORE Scientific American Volume 328, Issue 1

QUOTE OF THE DAY "Current text to speech systems are able to produce very realistic sounding voices, which is why smart assistants sound so authentic despite their verbal responses being generated on the fly. But they require high-quality and very clean training data, which is usually captured in a recording studio with professional equipment. Microsoft's approach makes VALL-E capable of simulating almost anyone's voice without them spending weeks in a studio." Andrew Liszewski, Gizmodo

FROM THE ARCHIVE The Science of Barbecue It's a mélange of chemistry, neuroscience and evolutionary biology, flavored with a big dollop of regional pride By Ali Bouzari | June 2019

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