Defective sweet taste receptor gene shapes cat cuisine
...mmalian sweet taste receptor can account for cats' indifference to sugar and other sweets. Cat owners have long ...y study conducted at Monell in the 1970s, the same indifference to sweets is also evident in wild cats such as lions, tigers, leopards, and jaguars. "One possible...Cats' indifference towards sugar explained
...of a functional sweet receptor that explains cats' indifference to sweet stimuli. Cats have no way to recognize carbohydrates, and therefore eat an "Atkins-like" diet of meat and fat. These findings lead to more questions, Brand says. "The overarching evolutionary questions are: when and why did cats lose the...Biological diversity and human health; Rapid autopsy program; Snake bites and more
...For example, antipsychotic drugs, they say, induce indifference and sedation, which could in the short term help to relieve the symptoms of acute psychosis (such as hearing voices, which is very disturbing to patients). Similarly, the sedative effects of many psychiatric drugs could in the short term, they say, ...Psst! Coffee drinkers: Fruit flies have something to tell you about caffeine
... The researchers went on to examine whether this indifference to bitter was due to the taste nerves on the fly's "tongue" or some malfunction in the fly's brain. Chemical stimulants trigger taste receptor cells to send an electrical current to the brain where the information is processed and often leads to a ch...