What We're Reading

Wasabi Receptors & Smart Sushi Labels

Researchers at UCSF have elucidated the structure of the receptor that makes our sensory nerves tingle when we eat wasabi. As this receptor is important in our perception of pain, knowing its shape should help in the development of new pain medications. At the company Thinfilm, a very thin electronic label was developed to be able to track vital information of of certain foods at each stage of the supply chain. This way, foods like sashimi salmon can have its temperature monitored from the warehouse to the grocery store, supplying information the consumer can use to decide whether to buy it and determine the best use-by date. The label offers a more accurate expiration date which could help decrease food waste and the number of cases of food-borne illnesses.

Sushi Science: A 3-D View of the Body’s Wasabi Receptor – NPR: Shots

Your Sushi May Be Getting Smarter – The Atlantic

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s