Exposing fetuses to certain flavors in the womb could lead to children being less picky eaters

Babies taste food in the womb via amniotic fluid, and it may influence future taste buds.

How our sense of taste evolves as we age

Kids are hardwired to prefer sweets over greens, with sweetness a shorthand for calorie-rich and bitter flavor warning of potentially noxious plants. This holds true even in the womb, where fetuses have been seen via ultrasound scans grimacing as their hosts consume kale capsules. As they age into double digits and beyond, their taste cells and sense of smell diminish, leading to broader and less sensitive palates.

Why kids are picky eaters

Parents who are stressed about their child repeatedly refusing vegetables: It may not be your fault. Rather than being a result of nurture, it appears that nature decides whether a kid is more adventurous with their appetite. Researchers tracked more than 2,400 sets of twins and found how genetics may actually be a major contributor to children's finicky eating habits.

Neural replays in mice help explain food aversions

Princeton University scientists published research in 2025 analyzing how mice learn to associate certain foods or flavors with feeling ill—even when there’s a time gap between eating something and feeling sick. The work, performed with grape Kool-Aid and injections of a substance that made mice sick, traced the literal “gut reaction” of how gut distress signals are linked to neural replays of what the mouse ate.

Newborns have a strong sense of smell

Babies are drawn to their mother's smell—and the particular odor of their mother's breast milk—within days, even as their vision remains blurry for months after birth. In the womb, the olfactory center also forms in the early stages of development.

Heightened sense of smell during pregnancy is not yet well understood

Boosted smell powers and strong reactions to them are often reported beginning around the six-week mark of pregnancy. Researchers say hormonal changes likely play a role, but the change remains poorly understood.

Read the 1963 study testing out an ancient Egyptian pregnancy urine test.

A pregnant woman's brain sheds gray matter, perhaps explaining 'baby brain.'

Peanut allergies dropped by 43% after doctors reversed avoidance guidance, but questions remain

The study’s data appear to confirm the policy shift. Still, since the study did not include an examination of infant diet, researchers can’t definitively say that the guideline shift led to dietary changes and thus directly caused the decline.

Touch is the first sense a fetus develops in the womb

During gestation, our sense of touch begins to develop around 8 weeks, starting with the development of sensory receptors in the face and, about a month later, in the palms and soles of the feet.

The research that led to sour

Scientists are trying to figure out if there are unique receptors that respond to the molecules that make up flavors we associate with calcium, blood, batteries, and other items that often escape dinner menus. Taste researcher Dr. Danielle Reed says the minimum evidence for a taste category typically involves identifying dedicated receptors and then removing them to show the taste vanishes.

Adults are developing food allergies that they didn’t have as children

Research published in 2019 found that almost half of 40,000 surveyed adults with food allergies developed a new food allergy as adults, underscoring that our immune systems may newly misclassify substances later in life.

The importance of volatile aroma compounds in the flavor quality of food

Processes such as air movement and heating cause food to lose aroma molecules, which studies have shown play a major role in our sense of taste. While losing these molecules to the environment leaves fewer to be processed during consumption to intensify flavor, it can also produce previously nonexistent aroma compounds or release previously trapped ones, altering or enhancing the food's flavor.

Touch helps newborns regulate stress, gain weight, and feel less pain

Conclusions from this 2024 analysis from a team of Danish researchers included that touch interventions were particularly useful for newborns in regulating cortisol levels, helping newborns gain weight, and reducing pain. (Some users may experience a paywall.)

Our love of chocolate may have more to do with how it ferments than previously realized—with specific microbes associated with more fruity or acetic tastes.

Ultraprocessed foods are linked with a 58% elevated risk of developing dementia.

Taste buds have evolved to fill a wide variety of functions

Taste buds do more than let you experience your favorite food. These peripheral organs can sense the chemical makeup, potential toxicity, and fleeting experience of flavor, giving the body a chance to respond to undesirable chemicals or tell the brain that you should reach for another scoop.

Cats have a mutation that prevents them from tasting sweetness, and goldfish rank among the world's supertasters.

Western babies often lack a gut microbe common elsewhere.

Improved 19th-century sanitation meant kids encountered polio later, with worse results

Almost all children likely used to contract poliovirus, but scientists suggest that when infants encountered it very early in life—due to poorer conditions and hygiene—they still had some maternal protection from pregnancy or through breastmilk, so the symptoms were more flu-like.

Gut microbiome rewrites may help reduce allergies

Researchers are investigating different strategies to determine if one day they could give people a combination of gut microbes to set them up for fewer allergies. In animal research, scientists have already prevented severe allergic responses in allergy-prone mice—supplying them with gut microbes from healthy, non-allergic human babies.

Read a study documenting how 'old people' smell increases with age

Analysis of body odors from individuals aged 26 to 75 confirmed that 2-nonenal, an unsaturated aldehyde with an unpleasant, greasy, and grassy odor, was detected only in subjects aged 40 and older.

Our sense of smell affects what foods taste like and how we perceive it

Scent stimulates our olfactory sensor neurons high in the nasal cavity, and the brain attaches labels to those scents. But when we eat, chemicals from the foods travel from our mouths and throat to those neurons. We have roughly 400 odor receptors, and they can be used to decipher more than 10,000 different odors (or more than one trillion by some calculations), including the nuances of different foods.

3-parent baby technique fuels worries of future 'designer babies'

Some critics of this approach worry that any genetic manipulation will both culturally and technologically normalize the idea of "designer babies"—embryos that are manipulated or selected based on physiological characteristics including height, eye color, athletic ability, and intelligence.

In the womb, a fetus may begin to hear at 18 weeks

Though little indentations form on the side of the fetus's neck at roughly nine weeks—with some formations taking place even before then—developmentally, these indentations don't become ears that allow a little one to hear until around 18 weeks.

A 'fishy' scent does lead to mistrust

In experiments where people were exposed to a literal fishy smell they were less willing to cooperate with others in economic games requiring trust, but that wasn't the case when they were exposed to another bad odor—the smell of flatulence.

Carboxylic acids are one reason teens are smelly

Scientists compared the smells of babies and teenagers and identified some of the compounds that make teens smelly. Carboxylic acids present in teens, they wrote, seemed to give off an "earthy, musty, or cheesy" scent. This 2024 research could help inform future odor-control products.

Fruit fly experiments show personality emerges, in part, from genetic factors

A 2025 study revealed that fruit flies exhibit unique behavioral preferences, akin to personalities, which could be artificially selected for when breeding to modify behavioral variability. This variability can be adaptive in unpredictable environments.

How texture affects taste

Texture is the brain's interpretation of several sensations, including pressure, as registered by our teeth, tongue, and finger tips, and sound, as recorded by our ears. Texture also speaks to food particle sizes—smaller than 35 microns contributes to the sensation of creamy—and the balance between flavor and mouth time, such as the crunch of a crispy chip or the bounce of a chewy caramel.

Many parts of the body, including the testicles, have bitter, sweet, and umami receptors

Taste receptors—the tiny cells that report the chemical makeup of external stimuli to the brain—in the testicles don't "taste" in the same way as the gustatory ones you use to determine if there's enough sugar in your tea. Research suggests that these "teste" receptors can sense bitter, sweet, and umami compounds and use that chemical input to control physiological processes or (literally) change direction. (Some users may experience a paywall.)

Risk factors linked with ASD include older parents, preterm births, and toxic prenatal exposures

Though researchers agree that there is a strong genetic component to ASD development, certain environmental factors heighten that risk, with studies suggesting older parents, premature birth, maternal obesity, and air pollution exposure in utero all elevate risks of ASD development. There is no connection between receiving vaccines and ASD development.

Pregnancy at older ages increases the chances of fetal abnormalities

Chromosomal irregularities are more likely at older maternal ages so genetic testing for a fetus of mothers-to-be at age 35 and older is often recommended. Conditions that can be screened for in utero include cystic fibrosis, Tay-Sachs disease, sickle cell disease, Down syndrome, spina bifida, Duchenne muscular dystrophy, and more.

Humans can track smells on the ground quite well—our ability to crawl is a limiting factor

As part of a scientific bet, neurobiology researchers dragged a chocolate bar across the grass and sought to see if a human could track it—she could. This led to a more in-depth experiment on human olfactory capabilities and behavior when other senses were blocked.

Study shows singing to babies improves their well-being

In a study of 110 parents and their babies across a span of four months, singing boosted infant mood and reduced fussiness. Follow-up studies are aimed at exploring whether singing can alleviate caregiver stress and postpartum depression.

Understanding the biochemistry of ingredients and taste can improve flavor and texture

Keeping eggs at room temperature produces smoother batters when baking, and doing the same with tomatoes helps prevent a mealy, granular mouthfeel. Salting meat a day before gives more time for proteins to break down, improving flavor and tenderness, while cooking vegetables in well-salted water can lock in nutrients and color.

3-parent baby approach may help women with infertility

Though the topline promise of this approach is avoiding passing on mitochondrial diseases, some researchers and companies have been eyeing its potential for helping with female infertility, since faculty mitochondria may contribute to the condition. Recent research suggests this approach could be promising.

Explaining why salt should be used to season food early in the cooking process

Experiments involving the same dishes, with salt added at the start of cooking versus at the end, have been shown to yield drastically different taste outcomes because salt takes time to diffuse into foods, particularly vegetables, whose cells are surrounded by cellular membranes and walls. Salting at the end will produce a concentrated surface coating, rather than even seasoning.

Paul Broca, a French brain researcher in the 19th century, hypothesized that humans evolved to trade in our "bestial sense" of smell for higher brain capacity.

The first newborn screen for diseases was developed in 1961.

Gut bacteria are evolving and can acquire as many as 100 new genes per year, on average.

Muted smell and taste in microgravity complicate meal enjoyment

Astronauts primarily consume freeze-dried meals, which are rehydrated with water recycled from urine and perspiration, directly from bags. Condiments and select cultural items from crew members can enhance the meal experience by boosting flavor. Many individuals report experiencing "food fatigue" due to a lack of fresh produce, limited menu variety, and lingering scents.

Fat is proposed as a candidate sixth basic taste

Oleogustus is Latin for "a taste for fat," and researchers proposed in 2015 that it should be accepted as the sixth basic taste. This article teases apart exactly what it would take to officially be considered the sixth taste and why researchers think the fat taste may be a strong candidate.

The science of food allergies

Why do certain substances trigger an immune response while others don't? Listen to researchers explain the science in this five-minute video. Food allergies affect around 8% of children and 2% of adults in the US, and—unlike sensitivity or intolerance—they involve the immune system mistaking certain harmless proteins in foods as dangerous invaders, triggering a rapid and sometimes severe defense response.

One-third of kids with food allergies report being bullied because of it, surprising parents

Research published in 2021 surveyed how more than 100 kids with food allergies were treated by their peers. About one-third of the surveyed kids had their allergies used against them. Bullying tactics included that their allergens were sometimes intentionally put in their food or thrown at them. Parents usually had no idea this bullying was happening.

A super-sniffer smelled her husband's Parkinson's disease years ahead of symptoms.

Zika virus shocked scientists because the mosquito-borne disease causes birth defects

This revelation, confirmed in 2016, marked the first time that a mosquito-borne disease was known to cause birth defects. Fetuses exposed to the Zika virus during pregnancy sometimes suffer from neurological complications and microcephaly, a small-headed condition associated with neurological development issues and impairment.

Learn about the neuroscience and psychology of why we crave comfort foods

The term was coined in 1966, when psychologist Joyce Brothers suggested humans turn to food associated with the feelings of comfort from their childhoods when experiencing emotional distress. Since then, studies have shown that the familiarity, reliability, and convenience of certain foods from one's upbringing can become tied to feelings of nostalgia.

Pregnancy makes someone more attractive to the mosquito species that transmits malaria.

Scent is a stronger memory trigger than sight

Smell is imbued with more emotion than visual memories, and research indicates that smell triggers a significantly greater effect on amygdala activation. Scientists believe these powerful responses occur partly because smell signals bypass the thalamus and go directly to the amygdala and hippocampus, brain areas involved in emotion and memory.

The science and ethics of artificial wombs

Artificial wombs may be able to help preterm babies survive their early entry into the world and possibly curb the long-term adverse health effects associated with such premature birth. This article dives into the current ethics and science behind artificial wombs and ectogenesis, which is when a fetus develops in artificial conditions.