Scientists Develop ‘Artificial Tongue’ To Detect Fake Whiskies

Scientists have developed an “artificial tongue” that can differentiate a young whisky from an 18-year-old single malt. “The team, based in Scotland, say their device can be used to tell apart a host of single malts — a move they say might help in the fight against counterfeit products,” reports The Guardian. From the report: Writing in the journal Nanoscale, the team describe how their artificial tongue is based on a glass wafer featuring three separate arrays, each composed of 2 million tiny “artificial taste buds” — squares about 500 times smaller than a human taste bud, with sides just 100nm long. There are six different types of these squares in the device, three types made from gold and three from aluminum. While one type of gold and one of aluminum are essentially bare, the surface of the other types are coated in different chemical substances. Each of the three arrays contain one type of gold and one type of aluminum square. When light is shone on an array, it interacts with the electrons at the surface of the squares, resulting in dips in the reflected light which can be measured. These dips appear at slightly different wavelengths depending on which type of square the light interacts with. Crucially, these dips shift depending on the liquid surrounding the arrays. The upshot is that each liquid gives rise to its own “fingerprint” of measurements. That means the device can be used to tell apart different liquids — and even identify them if they have been recorded before — without revealing their makeup, rather like our own tongues do.