Human beings use their tongues to sense flavor, but a fish uses its beard, or whiskers, to taste. Catfish use their whiskers to sense flavor. Taste cells have a kind of proteins that accept various flavors, called receptor proteins. General taste response process is: when the sour, sweet, bitter, spicy and other substances in a, and taste cells in contact with the combination, the receptor container to accept the taste of the stimulus and produce electric current, the taste of the information to the brain, through the central nervous system of the brain analysis and synthesis, you can identify the taste of the type and intensity of the degree. Scientists based on this principle, from the taste feel sensitive catfish whiskers, separated from a taste receptor container protein, and it is placed in a special device culture, so that it maintains biological activity, so that it is made into a taste sensor, when a variety of flavors to stimulate the catfish whiskers made of the taste sensor, the taste sensor immediately produce bioelectric current, this current is connected to the computer, the computer will immediately be able to taste the flavor of the The computer can immediately make a judgment on the type of flavor.
Principle of the above, simply put, the fish's beard is almost the same as the role of the human tongue.