Heavy water tastes sweet

(Institute of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry of the Czech Academy of Sciences (IOCB Prague)) Ordinary pure water has no distinct taste, but how about heavy water? Does it taste sweet, as anecdotal evidence going back to 1930s may have indicated? And if yes - why, when D2O is chemically practically identical to H2O? Researchers led by Pavel Jungwirth from IOCB Prague and Masha Niv from the Hebrew University show that, unlike ordinary water, heavy water tastes sweet to humans with this effect being mediated by the sweet taste receptor.
Source: EurekAlert! - Biology - Category: Biology Source Type: news