Of things that can curl and what nots

One of the very few things that I remember since secondary school days during science class was being asked by the teacher during a classroom session as to whether we could curl our very own personal mobile mass of muscular tissue covered with mucous membrane … (oohh..sounds kinky!), hahaa, but located in the oral cavity (i.e. the tongue).

This is still vivid in my mind, but I don’t know why I can still remember what the thin, bespectacled, shoulder-length hair science teacher looked like. For the life of me, I can’t remember her name though. No, no.. definitely no fixation with my science teacher at that tender age, but I guess I recall due to her flustered appearance when she had to go through the human reproductive system with the entire class in rapt attention! Hahaha! Like that ah! But seriously, the topic never got that far, more like, “See the diagram in the textbook (and I saw a space alien like head, with a narrow snout, of what was supposed to be the female internal anatomy), and go back and read” and thus ended the class. Come to think of it, she shouldn’t have been nervous about explaining the birds and the bees, after all, she was already married… and you know what married people do… :) Hmmm, oh shucks! I really shouldn’t be making these gross over generalized statements…. after all, I am sure some (most?) single ones do it too…. :)

But I digress…

I think I remember her and the question about curling the tongue bit, because I am one of the 15% of the population who cannot curl their tongue, as some kind researching souls have concluded, based on not sure what samples of testing. Upon being asked in class whether we could curl our tongue, it struck me that “No s&^%! I cannot curl my protruding appendage!” Being so full of myself when young (not anymore now!), there was this perception that there was nothing I can’t do! Hence, the inability to simply curl my tongue had a profound effect on me.

Later I found out that tongue curling ability is in the genes, and is determined by a special gene form called an allele. Every person has two tongue-curling alleles - one inherited from the mother and one from the father. Of the two kinds of tongue-curling alleles, one is called dominant and the other recessive. Using T for dominant and t for recessive, a person will be able to curl his or her tongue if and only if he/she inherits at least one T allele.

Anyway, some tongue facts:
a. some people like to eat BBQ ox tongue (like my younger sister) – especially for Korean BBQ sessions. I wonder why they don’t say cow tongue. Why must be ox tongue? Got difference meh?
b. close to fifty percent of the bacteria in the mouth lives on the surface of our tongue.
c. there are approximately 9,000 taste buds on the tongue.
d. 85% of the population can curl their tongue into a tube.
e. like fingerprints, everyone's tongue print is different. So, be prepared to be tongue printed.




So, what brought about this post on the tongue thingy? Well, was having lunch the other day with some colleagues from another department (yes, it all comes back to food!) and one of the guys demonstrated his tongue dexterity by taking the stem from a cherry and tying a knot with his tongue! Wah! So “Keng” one. To prove it wasn’t a fluke, he did it twice more. The occasion when I “timed” him, it took him like all of 20 seconds to do so! Hmm, his girlfriend must be a very lucky girl! Hahahaaa… (censored).

Can you curl your tongue? Can you tie a knot in a cherry stem with your tongue?