Electronic tongue tastes, identifies sweeteners so you don’t have to

The tongue, besides being creepy, offers plenty in the way of research opportunities, as you know if you’re a regular visitor to this space. In the past we’ve seen a tongue-based computer interface or two, the BrainPort sight-via-papillae solution, and this week, at the American Chemical Society’s annual meeting, researchers from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign introduced a sensor about the size of a business card that detects and identifies fourteen common sweeteners — including Splenda, Sugar in the Raw, and Sweet’n'Low. The product of a decade of research in colorimetric sensor arrays, it works when dipped into the substance, and takes about two minutes to get results. The team, led by a Professor Suslick (really!), hopes that this leads to a low-cost solution for anyone who needs to monitor their blood glucose levels, and eventually a way to monitor contaminants in food or in the environment at large. We recommend using with D+caf caffeine testing strips to ensure that you get nothing out of your morning coffee whatsoever.

[Via CNET]

Filed under: Science

Electronic tongue tastes, identifies sweeteners so you don’t have to originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 19 Aug 2009 14:53:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This post is tagged: American Chemical Society, AmericanChemicalSociety, Coffee, colorimetric, colorimetric sensor array, ColorimetricSensorArray, electronic tongue, ElectronicTongue, Splenda, sugar, Sugar in the Raw, SugarInTheRaw, Suslick, SweetnLow, tongue, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, UniversityOfIllinoisAtUrbana-champaign