Justin Morgan owned a bay colt born in 1789, he named Figure. Figure's ability to outwalk, outtrot, outrun, and outpull other horses was legendary. After Justin Morgan's death, Figure became known by his former owner's name, the Justin Morgan horse.
Part of that may be because our sense of taste is slowly dying. Sadly for the rest of us, our physiology is working against us on nearly every front. As we age, our taste buds stop regenerating, and our sense of smell dulls. An average adult taster might have 10,000 taste buds in his or her mouth. A supertasterâone of those 15 to 25 percent of the population whose tongue is extra sensitiveâmight be gifted with twice as many. A non-taster, meanwhile, might have to get by with half the norm.
Whatâs a supertaster you ask? More or less, itâs just someone with a heck of a lot more taste-buds than the average person. Specifically, someone with more than about 35 papillae per 7mm diameter circle on their tongue. Papillae are tiny structures on your tongue that contain your taste-buds. It turns out, about 25% of people are supertasters; 25% are non-tasters; and the other 50% are somewhere in the middle.