If you read one magazine article this week, definitely check out the New Yorker profile of Chicago chef Grant Achatz. The wunderkind behind the molecular gastronomy mecca Alinea, Achatz is currently running the show without a sense of taste. In what must be one of the worst cases of irony ever, the 34-year old was diagnosed with Stage IV tongue cancer earlier this year. Though he refused the standard treatment that would have involved removing most of his tongue, radiation therapy has nonetheless zapped, at least temporarily, most of his taste buds.

Still, Achatz presides over the Alinea kitchen, guiding his employees in the creation of his trademark outrageous confections - desserts of strawberry, olive, and violet essence; squab candy bars; pea and smoked salmon lollipops. Slowly, his sense of taste is returning - he can now taste salt and sugar again, and expects regain the ability to detect more subtleties as the months pass. He even hopes the experience will make him a more creative, edgier chef. Though coming from the man who served dehydrated bacon suspended from a silver scaffold during opening week, I'm not sure what that means.

It looks like an egg - maybe poached, maybe fried - right? You're close, but...not really. That's Marcel Vigneron's Cyber Egg, made with no egg whatsoever. Rather, it's a dollop of carrot-cardamom puree that has been mixed with sodium alginate into calcium chloride to create the appearance of a "yolk," and coconut milk mixed with agar hardened in a ring-shaped dish.

Marcel Vigneron was a finalist in this past season's Top Chef, and though he didn't win with his surreal creations like the above shown Cyber Egg, Potato with Truffle Espuma, and Coffee "Caviar," it is dishes like these that have at least brought what we call "moleclar gastronomy" to the masses. Wired magazine has a short video interview with the Top Chef finalist, as well as three slideshows of his creations.

Move over Ferran Adrià. Northern China has its own version of molecular gastronomy: hand-pulled noodles. Well not quite, but the above clip of Chef Mark Pi is fascinating not only because of the sheer craftsmanship required to, er, pull off such a feat, but because of the science lesson the narrator gives.

Physicist Philip Morrison gives us noodle making as a way of discussing the size, particularly the thickness, of atoms. He states: "We approach the division of matter...by halving and halving and halving it again." This point is clearly demonstrated by Chef Pi's demonstration of hand-pulling dragon's beard noodles. After folding the noodles a dozen times he's created 4,096 ultrathin strands. Morrison points out that if the venerable chef had managed 42 times his noodles would have reached atomic thickness.

Incidentally, this vid comes from a 1987 PBS program The Ring of Truth: Atoms. I found another great and hilarious clip featuring Julia Child. Without giving too much away, all I'm going to say is it involves her isolating pure carbon.

Some of my friends look at me like I'm crazy when I talk about the texture of foods. They just don't seem to get it, maybe it's the language. When I say a food "tastes" slimy they understand, but when I say the texture is slick and viscous they just blink and stare at me. Finally I feel validated, the science of food texture is hitting the big time.

The texture of what we eat is the number one thing we base our likes and dislikes on. Making sure that commercial food products feel right in our mouth is an enormous part in the development of any new food item. That's why you see the ingredients carrageenan, carob bean, food starch, and guar gum on many foods. They increase creaminess, amp up the thickness, and otherwise make foods feel better in your mouth. Commercial food production has known about textures for centuries, but now the focus is both changing, and increasing dramatically. Chefs and restaurants have known about the importance of textures for just as long but now they are playing with the concept in new ways.

I always love to hear about weird and unusual restaurants. As someone who was a science major for a time in college and having studied at several culinary schools I am into food science and molecular gastronomy in a big way.

The adventures of a few of the more interesting chefs like Homaro Cantu, Wylie Dufresne, Heston Blumenthal, Edouard de Broglie and Etienne Boisrond, Ferran Adrià Acosta, and the score of other chefs who are experimenting in the kitchen make for some fascinating reading. Gadgets, liquid nitrogen, lasers, and edible paper and ink; you can read about your food and then eat your words...

Here's a few of the good, the bad, and the just plain silly at Forbes.com pictorial list of what they consider "The most unusual restaurants in the world."

Not every home cook is content with working with the usual tools of the home kitchen, especially not if they follow the ideas and techniques of molecular gastronomists like Grant Achatz or Ferran Adria (or Steven and Marcel from Top Chef, for that matter). Wired has come up with a gift list for cooks interested in practicing nanogastronomy in their own home.

The first, and most obvious, gift that they suggest is a trip to one of the havens of molecular gastronomy, like El Bulli in Spain, Alinea or Moto in Chicago, WD-50 in New York, or The Fat Duck in England. Heston Blumenthal's Kitchen Chemistry includes a cd with video clips to help provide visuals for the technical information included in the book. Once the basics are in place, all the would-be chef needs are tools. Try an insulated whipped cream maker for experimenting with hot and cold mousses, a vacuum sealer for sous vide cooking or a dehydrator (also useful for raw foodists who need gifts) for turning otherwise wet foods into powders and garnishes.

We got a peek at the tasting menu at Alinea a few weeks ago via Gastronomie SF, but since you can't have too much of a good thing, let's take another look at the 24-course molecular gastronomy marathon. Dominic Armato, from Skillet Doux, recently had the full menu at Alinea and reported back on his thoughts for each course - no small feat. The photography is exceptional and his commentary on the meal is very interesting. For anyone who has been considering making a reservation at the restaurant, it might be enough to make you hop a plane to Chicago.

The "dish" pictured above is served in a shot glass and was one of the highlights of the dinner. It is a ball of curry and butter with a pear juice center, surrounded with celery juice.

The July edition of Food & Wine features a profile of David Arnold, who will soon be heading a food technology lab at the French Culinary Institute in Manhattan. Ideas like walk-in microwave ovens and tableside wine carbonation are just a few of Arnold's plans, according to F&W. Arnold also reviewed Molecular Gastronomy: Exploring the Science of Flavor by Hervé This in the June issue of Food Arts. He takes issue with some of This's ideas about what exactly molecular gastronomy is and who started it. Discover.com also has a great profile of This (pronounced either TEES or TISS, depending on who you read) and the early stages of the molecular gastronomy movement.