Of course, the nuances of the above were lost to some laymen. In the lungs and nose, there is evidence that they are involved in regulating inflammatory responses.” Those in the testicles help with sperm production, and mice that are genetically altered to not have two types of taste receptors are infertile.

“They might detect infections, as bacteria have sweet structural compounds and secrete bitter and sour things as waste. Taste receptors can be found throughout the body, such as in the digestive and respiratory tracts. Knowing that testicles have taste receptors, the next obvious question is why? “You can just think of them like any other receptor in the body that is monitoring the environment,” Emma Beckett, a molecular nutritionist at the University of Newcastle in Australia, told ScienceAlert. (Editor’s Note: Please don’t inject your testicles with soy sauce). Unless you inject them with soy sauce, this viral challenge wouldn’t work. Besides, as far as scientists know, the taste receptors are on the inside of the testicles. So although the testicles do contain taste receptors, they don’t lead to taste because they’re not connected to the brain. Without the brain doing that translating, you don’t actually taste sweet, bitter, sour, salty, or umami flavors. The receptors send signals over nerves to the brain, and the brain translates the signals into flavors. They were originally trying to develop mice that didn't have these receptors for use in taste-related studies, but soon realized that these mice were unable to reproduce if they were missing the taste receptors.Taste buds, which are found in the mouth and upper esophagus, are clusters of sensory cells with hair-like projections and thousands of taste receptors. New research, published today (July 1) in the journal Proceedings Of The National Academy of Sciences, found that these taste proteins for sweet and umami (the amino acid taste of soy sauce) not only exist in the testes, but they play an important role in mouse fertility.

'For the most part, though, full function of these extra-orally located taste receptors is unknown.' they seem to be part of the chemical sensing of sugars or amino acids,' he said. ' function of taste receptors and signaling proteins outside of taste system is still unclear. But, we really don't know what they are there for, study researcher Bedrich Mosinger, of the Monell Chemical Senses Center told Business Insider in an email: Taste receptors have been found in in the stomach, intestines, pancreas, lungs, and brain, the researchers said.

Do testicles have taste buds