BALTIMORE, Maryland - Researchers at Johns Hopkins University have released another report detailing the way our universe would be perceived by a person able to experience it all at once. In 2002, Astronomer Ivan Baldry and his colleagues determined the color of the universe to be beige, after initially erroneously declaring it to be pale turquoise. Now Terry Slack, astronomer and gourmet chef, says he has concluded that the universe tastes like chicken.

"I realize it is something of a joke," admitted Slack, "You could argue, 'Who cares?' And of course, didn't it just have to be chicken? That was a surprise, actually. I was expecting something more on the lines of a sauce, probably hollandaise. But I used reputable methods and software, the evidence is irrefutable." Slack's taste research showed that in contrast to commonly held belief, there are five different types of taste detected by the tongue, spread evenly across the tongue's surface. These tastes are detected by individual receptor cells essentially acting as chemical doors. When the chemicals representing a certain taste enter a door, the cells action potential is generated, alerting the brain to a taste. "These sensations, taken as a whole, give us our impression of a banana, a piece of fish, or a mint. Just as we don't see a picture in terms of its percentage of red, green, blue, and hue, we also don't recognize these levels of the five tastes. Instead, we get a single 'picture' of the flavor," explained Slack, "but by reading those levels chemically, we can determine what flavor a substance would have."

Applying this culinary knowledge to his study of the skies, Slack decided to build a 'flavor map' like the 'color map' developed by Baldry. "It's not quite as straightforward as Ivan's work, since there's no direct mapping of a color to a taste," said Slack. He ultimately settled on using red, green, and blue to represent the flavors sweet, sour, and bitter, X-Ray levels map to salty, and the intensity of the color and X-Rays provided him with the umami flavor. "Once I worked out the mapping, I was able to use Ivan's data, come up with the five taste levels, and compare it to known flavors." The best fit was chicken, specifically "the breast meat of the Canadian Chantecler," said Slack.

When asked if he would be pursuing research into how the universe might be perceived through any other senses, Slack responded, "No, decidedly not. I've taken a bit of ribbing over this one. But if anyone else wants to pursue it, my research is available on the Internet."
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