Solved cryptogram
The tongue has no map of separate taste zones. Every region can pick up all the basic tastes.
Biology Facts, sourced to NIDCD.
What it means
The diagram with sweet at the tip and bitter at the back is one of the great durable errors of school science. It came from a mistranslated German paper of 1901 that reported only slight regional differences in sensitivity, which a later textbook redrew as sharp zones. Taste buds across the whole tongue respond to sweet, sour, salty, bitter and savory alike.
The claim comes from NIDCD, and the page it comes from was read on 2026-08-27 to confirm it still says this.
This is not the kind of claim that goes out of date, which is why it was set as a puzzle rather than a fact with a shelf life.
Solve it yourself
This fact is a cryptogram here: 74 letters over 21 different ones, graded hard.
- SourceNIDCD
- CollectionBiology Facts
- Difficultyhard
- Length74 letters, 21 of them different
Nearby in the collection
The facts either side of this one.
- National Eye Institutemedium, 72 letters
- NIDCDmedium, 68 letters
- NIDCDeasy, 74 letters
- NIDDKhard, 74 letters
About as hard as this one
Scored closest to it by the model behind our guide to solving cryptograms.
- Royal Society of Chemistryhard, 70 letters
- U.S. Geological Surveyhard, 66 letters
- NIAMShard, 76 letters
- National Human Genome Research Institutehard, 67 letters