Wagging Our Tongues?

          Today I’m blogging about a muscle we use all the time, but never sprain. It’s our tongue.

          Yes, I know I’m a bit chatty and use mine more often than is probably wise, but we take this weird muscle for granted, and I want you to know more about it.

          First, your tongue is the only muscle in your body that is attached at only one end. This loose connection seems rather risky, yes?  Maybe it’s why we tend to blabber on and on. If it were connected at the tip, I’m guessing we’d be very selective in what we choose to say.

          To be accurate, the tongue is more than one muscle—it’s made up of eight muscles. And on it we have 3,000 to 10,000 taste buds. It’s unique, like a fingerprint. Even identical twins have different tongue prints.

Flipping your tongue over or curling it into a clover are genetic abilities, however they pay nothing.

We can’t actually taste anything until saliva has moistened it, and since salt dissolves in water, this is what we usually taste first. The tongue keeps working while we sleep, too, pushing saliva into our throats to moisten them.

We should brush our tongue, just like we brush our teeth.

Fastest tongue in the west (or in any direction): The chameleon’s. It can go from zero to 50 in 1/100^th of a second. Sorry, sports car fans.

          Weirdest Tongue Award goes to the giraffe, whose prehensile tongue can look purple or black. Scientists think this extra pigment protects against UV rays (and is certainly more convenient than rubbing sunscreen on your tongue every hour).

And now you can use your talented tongue to tell all your friends to subscribe to this blog!