Dr. Charles Zuker is a Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics and of Neuroscience at Columbia University and a Principal Investigator at Columbia's Zuckerman Institute. Dr. Zuker explains why our sense of taste is so evolutionarily critical to our survival; how taste was fundamentally misunderstood until about 20 years ago; how our stomachs tell our brains to go for real sugar instead of artificial sweeteners; why the Zuckerman Institute and the Jerome L. Greene Science Center is such a fabulous place to study neuroscience; and why the Institute has artists-in-residence working alongside the scientists. Also, the video of controlling thirst in mice using light that is referenced in the podcast can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_z51OGBaWko Note: the Zuckerman Institute’s air filtration system is top notch, but caused a hum in the background that we couldn’t edit out.