Dentistry

Bloodletting and Bone Brushes: The White-Knuckle Days of Early Dentistry

With all those gleaming, stainless-steel tools readied for painful prodding, few people look forward to visiting the dentist. But modern dentistry is a walk in the park compared with archaic methods of treating oral maladies: Be glad you’re not seeking treatment for mysterious “tooth worms” or using dentures filled with the syphilitic teeth of dead…

Tech News Hunter Oatman-Stanford - Collector's Weekly Sep 10

Dentists Found a Pain-Free Cavity Fix That Might Actually Work

Researchers from King’s College London just announced a new approach to fixing cavities that requires no injections, no drills, and no pain. It’s just a little blast of electric current that encourages the tooth to self-repair. And they say it’ll be on the market in three years. The new technique sounds confusingly simple. Cavities form…

Tech News Adam Clark Estes Jun 17

An optical illusion is making dentists drill holes that are too big

There’s an optical illusion where a small, enclosed area appears larger when surrounded by a larger area. This visual anomaly, called the Delboef illusion, is making the holes that dentists cut in preparation for fillings appear smaller than they really are. This illusion was first documented by Franz Joseph Delboeuf, a Belgian philosopher and expert…

io9 George Dvorsky Nov 6

This bizarro 3D-printed toothbrush can clean your teeth in 6 seconds

Life just suddenly got all that more convenient. Introducing Blizzident, a $300 toothbrush that’s specifically tailored to your own teeth. Just stick it in your mouth and let the bristles do the rest. Blizzident utilizes two intersecting technologies: 3D scanning and 3D printing. After having your dentist take an impression of your teeth, you send…

io9 George Dvorsky Oct 1

Dentists May Start Covering Teeth in Growth-Stimulating Diamond Dust

Looks like there’s a new candidate for most awesome supermaterial in town. Dentists may soon start fighting bone loss by covering our teeth in itty bitty nanodiamonds, making repairing teeth quicker, cheaper, and much less painful. https://gizmodo.com/9-incredible-uses-for-graphene-5988977 During jaw and tooth repair operations, doctors are normally forced to use invasive surgery to stick a sponge…

Tech News Ashley Feinberg Sep 23

Who Wants a Tooth That Tells Your Doctor When You Drink or Smoke?

Everybody lies to their doctors. We say that we drink less than we do. We tell her we quit smoking when we didn’t. But what if the doctor knew more about what goes into your mouth than you do? That’s the idea behind a new Bluetooth-ready fake tooth that works as an oral sensory system.…

Tech News Adam Clark Estes Jul 26

Teeth Grown from Gum Cells May Make Dentures Obsolete

A team of British researchers have successfully grown a tooth from human gum tissue—which might make false teeth a thing of the past. The scientists, from King’s College London, took human epithelial cells from the gums of volunteers, cultured them in the lab to grow a larger sample, then mixed them with mesenchyme cells from…

Tech News Jamie Condliffe Mar 11

Preserved bacteria reveal how we’ve been rotting our teeth for 7,500 years

Bacteria outnumber the cells in our own body by a factor of 10 to 1 — as many as 100 trillion microbes per person — and yet we know almost nothing about how bacteria have changed as humans evolved. Although they’re much more numerous than our own cells, bacteria are so tiny that they represent…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins Feb 17

Your Spit Might Tell Dentists If You Have Cancer

Dentists (a.k.a. we’re real doctors, I promise!) might soon be your first line of defense against cancer through something called salivanomics—meaning analyzing your spit to see if you have diseases. UCLA researcher Dr. David Wong argues in a new paper published in the Journal of the American Dental Association that in saliva lie a number…

Health Leslie Horn Oct 22

Dental X-Rays Linked to the Most Common Brain Tumors

Cancer researchers have found that certain types of dental X-rays significantly increased the incidence of the most common type of brain tumor in the United States: meningioma. The study authors offer the caveat that their subjects likely received X-rays as kids that delivered a much higher dose of radiation than those used today. But the…

Tech News Kristen Philipkoski Apr 10

Meet Vermin Supreme, the presidential candidate who will fund time travel research

For the last several decades, boot-headed performance artist Vermin Supreme has been running for political office on the platforms of zombie awareness and mandatory dentifrice for all Americans. Vermin “Love” Supreme — who sells himself as the biggest rat among a sea of rodent politicians — recently scored his biggest coup at the Lesser-Known Democratic…

io9 Cyriaque Lamar Jan 8

Nerf Guns Provide the Cutest Way to Pull Your Tooth

Videos of semi-terrified kids having their teeth yanked by others in crazy ways are a dime a dozen. That’s why we love this fearless and adorable kid who yanks his own tooth with a Nerf bow. Nice technique, baller kid! [via Wimp] https://gizmodo.com/best-worst-older-sister-extracts-brothers-tooth-with-a-5822432

Tech News Brent Rose Dec 24

This dental robot is forever silently screaming

Meet Showa University’s Showa Hanako 2, a dental training robot that’s made of the same silicone skin that lines love dolls. We’ve seen some lifelike dental bots before, but this machine’s pliable skin takes it to a whole ‘nuther level. Unlike the poor love dolls that share this robot’s synthetic shell, the Showa Hanako 2…

io9 Cyriaque Lamar Jul 2

Wisdom teeth could provide your own private bonanza of stem cells

Wisdom teeth, the vestigial molars that ancient humans used to grind plants but nowadays serve no purpose, might have their uses after all. The teeth possess a gold mine of cells that can be reprogrammed into pristine, treatment-ready stem cells. Most people’s wisdom teeth, or third molars, grow in sometime between the ages of 17…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins Sep 10

Thanks to nanotechnology, you’ll never have a root canal again!

A new dental therapy could repair damaged nerves inside teeth, making root canals a thing of the past. And it’s all done with an ultrathin layer of nanofilm. Currently, there’s only one way for dentists to deal with infection or inflammation inside teeth, and anyone who has had a root canal can tell you it’s…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins Jul 5

Tooth Regeneration Gel Could Make Fillings Obsolete

I am always looking for excuses to not brush my teeth, but the dentist always threatens me with painful cavity fillings. Well, screw you, dentist! With new tooth regeneration gel, I no longer have a reason to brush. The new gel could completely eliminate fillings, instead placing this in a cavity and regenerating the tooth…

Tech News Adam Frucci Jul 1

Robot Makes Laughable Attempt At Simulating Dentist Chair Discomfort

Hanako, a robot designed in Japan, has a mouthful of sensors that let her realistically react to the pokings and proddings of dentists in training. Let me be clear, dentists in training: no robot can loathe you like I do. While I will begrudgingly admit that the “polish” phase of the dentist check-up is not…

Tech News Kyle VanHemert Mar 25

It’s About Time: A Drill-Free Fix For Cavities

If bacteria settle in between your teeth and form a cavity, your dentist must drill through your tooth just to get at it. But now dentists can trade their drills for a simple treatment that stops early-stage cavities. The Icon system lets dentists halt decay between teeth. Usually when a dentist spots an early cavity-when…

Tech News Popular Science Feb 3

Accupal Takes the Steve Martin Out of Dentistry

The Accupal won’t make your next root canal painless, but it will lessen the sting of the needle. Essentially an ultrasonic toothbrush with a hole in it, when coupled with minor amounts of topical anesthetic, you can apparently poke and prod someone’s mouth all day without pain. It seems to work through a combination of…

Tech News Mark Wilson Jul 31

Tooth Regeneration Tech Could Make Fillings Obsolete

Scientists are hard at work on making teeth regrow the crystals that make up dentin and enamel, allowing them to phase out fillings and drillings completely. The goal is to spot tooth decay early and then get the teeth to grow healthy tooth-matter over the bad spots. No fuss, no muss. They say that the…

Gadgets Adam Frucci Apr 2

Bloodletting and Bone Brushes: The White-Knuckle Days of Early Dentistry

Dentists Found a Pain-Free Cavity Fix That Might Actually Work

An optical illusion is making dentists drill holes that are too big

This bizarro 3D-printed toothbrush can clean your teeth in 6 seconds

Dentists May Start Covering Teeth in Growth-Stimulating Diamond Dust

Who Wants a Tooth That Tells Your Doctor When You Drink or Smoke?

Teeth Grown from Gum Cells May Make Dentures Obsolete

Preserved bacteria reveal how we’ve been rotting our teeth for 7,500 years

Your Spit Might Tell Dentists If You Have Cancer

Dental X-Rays Linked to the Most Common Brain Tumors

Meet Vermin Supreme, the presidential candidate who will fund time travel research

Nerf Guns Provide the Cutest Way to Pull Your Tooth

This dental robot is forever silently screaming

Wisdom teeth could provide your own private bonanza of stem cells

Thanks to nanotechnology, you’ll never have a root canal again!

Tooth Regeneration Gel Could Make Fillings Obsolete

Robot Makes Laughable Attempt At Simulating Dentist Chair Discomfort

It’s About Time: A Drill-Free Fix For Cavities

Accupal Takes the Steve Martin Out of Dentistry

Tooth Regeneration Tech Could Make Fillings Obsolete

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