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LOOKING FOR SOME<\/b> trivia to impress people once we can safely have parties again? We humbly present a few of our favorite weird mouth facts for your consideration.<\/p>\nWe Need Spit to Taste Our Food<\/h3>\n
Most of the ten thousand taste buds in our mouths are located on our tongues, but none of them would do us any good without spit<\/strong>. When food molecules dissolve in our spit, the chemicals can be detected by the receptors on our taste buds.<\/p>\n Do you remember when your adult front teeth came in that they had funny little bumps on the chewing surfaces, or have you noticed them on your child\u2019s teeth? Those bumps are called mamelons<\/strong>. The theory is that they help the teeth break through the gums. For most people, they wear away over time with regular chewing.<\/p>\n It\u2019s easy to assume that the bumps on our tongues are taste buds. That\u2019s true in a way, but individual taste buds are much too small to see with the naked eye<\/strong>. The bumps are structures called lingual papillae, and there are four types: filiform, fungiform, foliate, and vallate. That\u2019s getting into a more intense biology lesson, but basically, all of them except the fungiform papillae have taste buds on them.<\/p>\n To tie it back to oral health, the trouble with papillae is that they create a rough texture on the tongue\u2019s surface where lots of bacteria can hide<\/strong>. If we let it build up, it can leave a lingering bad taste in our mouth and a bad smell on our breath. It can even dull our sense of taste! That\u2019s why we need to clean our tongues daily, ideally with a tongue-scraper.<\/p>\n The tongue is made up of eight muscles. Four of those are intrinsic (the ones that actually make up the tongue) and four are extrinsic (the ones that attach the tongue to the mouth and throat). The tongue has an amazing range of movements.<\/strong> It can lengthen, shorten, curl, uncurl, and roll (though not everyone can do that last one). We\u2019d have a hard time eating and speaking if it couldn\u2019t move in these ways!<\/p>\nThe Bumps on New Adult Teeth Are Called\u2026<\/h3>\n
And The Bumps on the Tongue?<\/h3>\n
The Only Group of Muscles That Doesn\u2019t Need Bones to Move<\/h3>\n