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　　It was an exciting day when Thomas Finger looked inside the nose of a small black mouse．Finger had borrowed the animal from another scientist．It was not your average mouse．The mouse's genes had been changed so that the taste buds(味蕾)on its tongue turned green when you shined light on them-like a secret message written in secret ink．

　　But no one had ever looked inside its nose．When Finger finally did look there with a microscope, he saw thousands of green cells．“It was like looking at little green stars at night,” says Finger,

　　Seeing that green starry sky was Finger's first glimpse of a new world．If he and other scientists are right, we don't taste things just on our tongues．Other parts of our body can also taste things-our nose, our stomach, even our lungs!

　　You might think of taste as something that you experience when you put chocolate in your mouth-or chicken soup, or salt．But for you to taste chocolate or chicken soup, special cells on your tongue have to tell the brain that they detected chemicals that are in the food．We have at least five kinds of these chemical-detecting cells(commonly called taste cells)on our tongues：cells that detect salt, sweet compounds(混合物), sour things, bitter things and savory(香的)things like meat or broth．

　　It's these chemical-sensing cells that scientists are now finding all over the body．“I'll bet you that in terms of total number of cells,” says Finger, “there are more[taste cells]outside the mouth than inside the mouth．”

　　This gives us clues about other functions the sense of taste has in our bodies．It could also help scientists find new treatments for certain diseases．