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Canadian Scientists Regrow Teeth
54mc writes "APL reports that Canadian Scientists have created the first device able to regrow teeth and bones.
The researchers at the University of Alberta in Edmonton filed patents earlier this month in the United States for the tool based on low-intensity pulsed ultrasound technology after testing it on a dozen dental patients in Canada."
For the Blade TV series!
I didn't believe in the tooth fairy until I saw my dentist in loafers.
So if you are out there, Mr. Dentist man, you can now officially BITE ME!
This was a 2 phase discovery:
:)
Phase 1 - Invent a sport where a piece of equipment that, at times, travels towards your face at 160 km/hour and weighs only 170 grams.
Phase 2 - Invent a way to grow teeth back due to resulting injury from Phase 1
It's a Canadian make-work program
- - - "Some people hate the English. I don't. They're just wankers. We, on the other hand, are colonized by wankers."
"with low frequency ultrasound pulses" is pretty uninformative for me. If they can regrow theeth, do they first have to implant a 'seed' that will focus the growth? Every theeth has a quite specific form, how will this device influence that?
Or can it be that somebody patented a possible way to stimulate bone & tooth growth and some reporter let his fantasy run wild on it?
This space is intentionally staring blankly at you
This notice hereby notifies you, Tooth Fairy that you are hereby no longer needed as your job has been outsourced to Canada. We hope you will find our severance package of 6 months teeth as well as full dental to be more than generous. Also note that you are hereby banned from acting in the capacity of ortho-collector for a period of 8 years, and any attmpt to circumvent this will lead to a termination of the aforementioned benefits.
-The Management
Lord know Canada is a great place to research tooth replacement, considering that Maine is so close by! We could really use some of that stuff down here!
Gramps is getting sick of eating through a straw.
As a rule, I never trust dark brown ketchup.
.. test this on other body parts. Just sayin.
I suggest Dog the Bounty Hunter sign up ASAP.
here
This space is intentionally staring blankly at you
"Canadian Scientists Regrow Teeth"
A group of Canadian scientists in the age from 4 to 10 has successfully regrown their teeth after they mysteriously lost them.
Thee ma ?
I thold you bruthing your theeth wath fo thuckerth !
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
That's a story with bite!
Mmmmmm... Bold, yet refreshing!
> Chen helped create the tiny ultrasound machine that gently massages gums and stimulates tooth growth from the root once inserted into a person's mouth, mounted on braces or a removable plastic crown.
As several of my teeth have gone the way of the fairy, I wonder how this "treatment" copes with teeth that have been root canal filled.
And what colour does the new tooth grow back at? It it's pure white - fantastic as it'll put lots of whiting products out of business, but bad as it'll have the pringles effect; once you start you'll have to have all your front/visible teeth done, even if they are just discoloured.
What with all those hockey players losing teeth. It was either there or Kentucky where people also don't have teeth. Interestingly that's where the toothbrush was invented. Otherwise it would have been called the teethbrush.
Thanks, I'll be here all week, enjoy the veal.
(Disclaimer: I am a Kentuckian)
From TFA:
But they had something like this working in the late 1990s so for part of the last seven years they have been mucking around making a minature version of their machine. A proper engineering job would have taken six months, max, and they could have kept working on the science.
Sorry to bitch about this but I see too much improvisation going on and not enough forethought.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
until they prove it on these (currently) toothless specimens:
1. The Justice dept. (SCO vs IBM)
2. The anti-trust dept. (MS vs US)
3. Other suggestions welcome...
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
I'm far away to know something about odontology, so i ask to the slashdot doctors:
This stimulation process could be used to cure bone illness, like Osteoporosis or Osteosarcoma ??
Thanks in advance.
Rock and Roll
The USPTO will strike again. Innovation will once again be stifled. This technology will remain overpriced and underdeveloped because all R&D is in effect frozen. Toothaches for all!
What's that you say?! With the encouragement of patents this technology would never have been developed?! But wait! These are "University" researchers. They are, in all likelihood, paid to do their research out of the public purse. Canadians have already paid for this research, and the scientists in question were already motivated to perform it.
Patents are less than useless to society. A competator is copying your ingenius invention? Welcome to the real world. This is what other businesses have to put up with all the time. Competition. Crying to the government for preferential treatment just because you were the first to stitch together some preexisting pieces of technology won't earn you too many brownie points with the people you subsequently gouge.
Patents aren't required. People and business will innovate without them. Don't believe me? Look at the wheel.
May the Maths Be with you!
I don't need no stinkin' "real" teeth. My false teeth are just fine, thank you very much! Hell, I can even eat corn on the cob, if someone cuts it off the cob and then mashes it up into a fine paste!
The article didn;t make it very clear...but do you have to have part of the tooth left to stimulate it to grow? or will the tooth grow from nothing.
This is quite a differnt approach to the "growing teeth from stem cells" that I read about recently. Both seem quite viable, but growing teeth from stem cells might be a little more complecated prehaps?
>>>Scanning for I.D.I.O.T.S. >>>
>>>I.D.I.O.T.S. FOUND! >>>
We can grow teeth now. Next step, growing teeth in places not the mouth.
Now all those nightmares I have about a woman with teeth in her vagina are going to come true.
Thanks a lot Canada!!
Horse hockey on the "growing a new tooth" thing, but I can see repairing damaged teeth, depending on the cause of the damage. You need the presence of odontoblasts, etc in order for a new tooth to grow. That guy Chen is an engineer, not a dentist. I'm thinking he doesn't really understand how teeth form and grow, so he's got high hopes for his invention. The root structure of teeth is covered in cementum and dentin, which are repairable, so it makes sense that teeth with root resorption may be fixed by the ultrasonic thing. But to completely grow new teeth, you'd have to have "tooth stem cells" in the area, and those stem cells would have to know what size and shape of tooth to form for that area. I don't see that one happening. I also don't see damaged enamel being fixed by this thing; once enamel is gone, it's pretty much gone.
Just great, the people that we refer to as sharks will start to grow back their own teeth, they will never stop being a menace to society now!
Darn you Canadians!
Thweet!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Exogen (website: http://www.exogen.com/, warning, flash and WMV alert) is basically an ultrasound device that's supposed to accelerate the healing of fractures. A lot of the media demonstrates the forearm because that was where most of the testing was done. SWMBO's mother broke her upper arm and used this system for a while; it did help...once she quit smoking.
So this all that different enough to deserve a patent? That it's an implant/crown/etc. instead of an external system.
The idea of using ultrasound to grow bone is nothing new. The size is.
Bob Dole uses this product, Bob Dole, Bob Dole.
I got my first root canal recently and finding out that they had to take out the nerve inside was truly shocking. It felt as an amputation of my body, immediately I wondered why on earth noone has invented to regrow the damn thing. One option was to take it out, the second one was to have the empty molar filled, and topped it off with a cumbersome crown.
:-)))
Anyways, I am glad to hear about this discovery because now I can get rid of all my artificial fillings and regrow my natural teeth
Just hope they freaking hurry up to make this a standard practice at the dental clinic.
We shall probably need to wait until patents expire before any significant commercialisation of this occurs, but does this, in principle, mean that we can replace diseased teeth new natural ones, rather than replacing them with dentures?
This means that curbing isn't so harmful after all.
...Shane MacGowan let out a unmistakingly happy "*blargh* bloody motherfuckers" upon hearing this news.
The view was horrible and the smell was even worse; Julie severely regretted becoming a proctologist.
They have closer cultural ties to Britain than the US. Just think of the market potential!
its not just me that thinks that's funny, is it?
Elephants do not die from old age, they die from starvation
(and of course they are killed by humans).
In the course of their lifetime they get a set number of
sets of teeth and after the last set is worn away, they
starve.
Now we can save them - just need someone to put the pea
size devices in their mouths.
What's next? All I can say is WOW, I've lost s few teeth from gum disease.
It isn't nearly as impressive as the technological miracle I've experienced the last 2 days.
I wore glasses since age 7 (yes I'm a nerd). I switched to contacts 4 years ago, and had to have reading glasses as well as contacts. I used to be four-eyes, now that I'm old it's six eyes.
Then I got a cataract in my left eye. The specialist told me of a new implant that was only approved in 2003, and extra $1900 above what insurance pays. As it's a one shot deal (they can't remove an implanted artificial lens) I went temporarily broke on it.
Dr. McCoy would have been jealous of all the technology in the operating room.
In the recovery room I could read the clock on the wall without any external corrective lenses for the first time in memory (I've worn glasses since 1959). The next day (yesterday) the eye doctor tested my eye, 20-20. For the first time in my life I have no restrictions on my driver's license!
Last week I had the type on the browser enlarged, plus wore reading glasses. Today I have the type set for normal, and no reading glasses. They tell me in a month I'll be able to read six point type w/o reading glasses!
In Star Trek II, McCoy gives Kirk a pair of antique reading glasses because he's allergic to the drug that cures age related nearsightedness.
We're still 200 years from the 23rd century, but we've passed Star Trek tech. Even McCoy didn't have these implants at his disposal! The implant I got, called a Crystal Lens, cures nearsightedness, farsightedness (both age-related and youth myopia), cataracts, and even astigmatism!
I'll get the other eye done in a few years. Then maybe I'll get some Canadian teeth!
(anti-MRC="botched". Couldn't be more wrong!)
Copyright(C) 1434500 B.C
Fun-fact: rats have been regrowing their teeth since Elvis.
Note to the humorless: please don't ruin joke by posting scientific facts about rats/humans
Britian.........anyone ever notice they have poor dental hygiene?
I speak on behalf of all the people of Alabama when I say: We's need one o' 'dem there teef regrowers!
marriage rates in Kentucky & Tennessee have skyrocketed.
The entire country of England erupts in mass celebration.
For years I thought "You know, teeth can't be too hard to create, why brush when I am sure that someone will invenet a way to replace them before mine get pulled."
http://exhippie.com/files/Alfred-3.gif
How do you complement a Canadian?
Nice tooth.
How do you know the toothbrush was invented in Canada?
Otherwise, it would be called a teethbrush.
I've complained before and will again, that dentistry has been the most underwhelming of 'sciences' for the past 100 years. What advances have we seen since the use of anaesthetics to reduce the pain? We got ultra-violet whitening systems.... and veneers.
So finally there's some progress. First was the company in florida which has since sort of gone into hiding... they showed a solution of genetically engineered oral bacteria that would take over control of the mouth by out-competing the native breed.. but were engineered to not create cavities. Haven't heard much on that front recently though. Maybe they got bought up by the makers of Crest or something...
Now we have a device that can regrow eroded tooth material... well it's something at least.
Maybe I can stop thinking of the whole practice of drilling and gouging and filling in with metals as the most barbaric so-called treatments of any human health problem. Dentistry is still at the equivalent stage of just cutting off the leg when it's broken, rather than fixing it. Hopefully that is about to change.
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
I'm curious... when you folks read an article like this, do you automatically believe it?
Personally, when I see "filed for a patent earlier this month", "testing it on a dozen patients", and "commercialization in two years" -- coupled with a science-fiction-like technology -- I think "BULLSHIT".
Just add it to the list of other bullshit vaporware impractical/impossible inventions that show up every once in a while trying to grab funding/sucker dollars: holographic memory, ridiculous compression technologies, flying cars, perpetual motion machines, etc.
I find it pretty amazing that almost all of the responses in this thread just assume that these guys are telling the truth about their "discovery". I'd love to be proven wrong. I'd love to see a new miraculous bone and tooth growing technology be discovered... but scientific and religious claims are easy to make. It's easy to put out a press release. It's hard to prove miraculous things. It's hard to provide evidence for the seemingly-unbelievable.
Why are you letting these clowns ruin our country?
Innovative and creative approach, and it looks promising. Looks like this one has teeth.
crickets.chirp()
In the wizarding world, they've been able to re-grow bones for ages. But I hear it's nasty business.
...of Waffle House waitresses, everywhere.
"People" using "unnecessary" quotes should be "shot".
please check your spelling. It's complicated with an i instead of an e. learn and advance.
B.
Every experiment which ends in a big bang is a good experiment.
The American Dental Association has called upon the Canadian Government to put an end to the regrowth of teeth, claiming that the availability of cheap teeth from Canada makes American dentists less interested in improving their techniques.
Said an A.D.A. spokesperson, "We need prices to remain high so that we can afford to innovate. When people can just get new teeth cheaply by just crossing the border, our strangle-ho.... uh, revenue stream will be jeopardized. The U.S. government must act immediately!"
For the engineers in the room...
http://www.ece.ualberta.ca/~jchen/
Article from the Globe & Mail
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.2 0060628.TEETH28/TPStory/National
Can the device be controlled via BlueTooth?
A few years ago, I broke both bones in my forearm -- the radius was broken so badly that I had pulverized a small portion of it so the two parts didn't line up exactly. They didn't notice this in the x-rays (and so couldn't cut into my hip as they hadn't gotten my authorization for that), so they tried artifical (read: cadaver) bone to regrow the spot. Didn't work.
A few months later, they enrolled me in a trial of a similar sort of ultrasonic technology by which my bone should regrow. They had been getting a 94% success rate with fibias, but the arm was something new. Needless to say, I was one of those lucky minorities that didn't show any growth. Months later, I was back on the table with new bone being brought in from my hip. Six weeks after that, I was healed. While cool, there is certainly no replacement for real bone.
Per Square Mile, a blog about density
Didn't Robert Heinlein once write about dental regrowth technology? Can time travel now be far behind (or ahead)?
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
I really surprised it was the Canadians and not the British who discovered this.
I hope that someday we will be able to put away our fears and prejudices and just laugh at people. - Jack Handey
I have been waiting for YEARS for the "Genetically modified mouth bactera", the kind that don't cause cavities, to become mainstream... But after a big hubub and fanfare, nope, never heard another peep about it... This is the same damn thing I suspect.
How many people loose "just" a bone?
"low-intensity pulsed ultrasound"
If I just hum along outside the office to repopulate my gums, does the Canadian RIA"A" send me a dentist's bill? Or am I covered under socialist health insurance, just like my other piracy is covered by the blank media tax I filled a few shoeboxes with?
--
make install -not war
Canada is a great place to research tooth replacement, considering that Maine is so close by!
This research was done in EDMONTON...in ALBERTA. Los Angeles is closer to Edmonton than any place in Maine. Incidentally the University of Alberta (my alma mater) has arguably the best schools of dentistry in Canada--of course there aren't many to choose from but it's pretty world-class. The U of A is actually recognised internationally for its research in many areas of life sciences (it has contributed to major innovations in the treatment of cancer, diabetes and heart disease).
Perhaps you were confusing Edmonton, Alberta with Edmundston, New Brunswick. The latter is just across the river from Madawaska, Maine and has no school of dentistry at all--in fact the people of western New Brunswick probably share the same dental challenges as the good citizens of northern Maine. I've visited NB and ME though and the people there are very nice...great place for people who like to snowmobile or cross-coutry ski...
http://www.rapestop.net/
Don't blame me -- I voted for Roslin.
It should be interesting to see how this affects the field of plastic surgery and people with forms of osteoporosis (bone loss). Although, I could foresee a potential misuse of this technology by body modification artists. Just what we need, people growing horns on their heads.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.2 0060628.TEETH28/TPStory/National/
= 7691
= 47563
http://www.expressnews.ualberta.ca/article.cfm?id
http://www.uofaweb.ualberta.ca/ece/news.cfm?story
and here is one of the papers:
Growth Modification of the Rabbit Mandible Using Therapeutic Ultrasound: Is it Possible to Enhance Functional Appliance Results?m ent&issn=0003-3219&volume=073&issue=06&page=0631
http://www.angle.org/anglonline/?request=get-docu
They don't know why ultrasound stimulates growth, but it does.
Apparently you are.
"If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear." - Every fascist, ever
Sounds great.
/. post the other day on the Air Force folks getting their eyes "ground down" (forgot the name) too; how does yours compare...?
Was there any period of pain after the surgery, if so, how long did it last? What is the name of the implant (my dad has a small cataract)?
Is this recommended for just people with cataracts, or is it for general use too? Been wearing glasses since the age of eight myself...afraid of contacts due to horror stories of people not cleaning them properly and getting yellow eyes, or danger of scratching my cornea when removing them. A relative got radial keratotomy (sp?), but got the "star-halo" vision at night...scary. Read the
Thanks in advance.
and they still cant make my penis bigger?!
"Patience is not a virtue, it's a waste of time."
Look like me ? ...I am Martian
A buddy at work here said that before she died, his 120 year old grandmother had started to regrow her teeth that she had lost when she was about 90. Does anyone know if this is a real phenomenon?
Can I use this device on perfectly good teeth? I would like to stimulate further growth on my 2 upper canine teeth. I've always wanted to have real fangs.
Now, other possibilities may include: Real Buck Teeth, 1950's Werewolf Teeth (two bottom canines), and Jagged Style (every other tooth is longer). Am I missing any?
I can also forsee some new "Teeth Fads" coming out now that people will have this ability to reshape their teeth. Hair fads, such as porkchops and mullets, are things of the past - teeth are the future.
How about the fact that published papers have shown, since at least 1996, that ultrasound can accelerate bone growth.
If it can accelerate bone growth, it seems a logical enough step for someone to experiement with teeth, and given that it's been ten years since bone growth was seen, why is teeth/jaw regeneration so hard to believe?
Or is it just because you haven't heard of it, it can't be real?
Did you also know that light acts simultaneously as both a particle and a wave, depending on how you examine it?
GPL Deconstructed
My father has chronic pain from a botched bypass surgery. His sternum is perminately half broken. It would help my father out greatly if this could offer a solution to somehow fix his sternum.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
How will this affect muscle growth to compensate the bone growth?
"To be is to do." --Socrates
"To do is to be." -- Aristotle
"Do-Be-Do-Be-Do..." --Sinatra
no really, they have scientists in Canada?
You mean regrowing teeth makes you gain lots of weight as well?
I suppose telling old out-of-date jokes makes a change from whining about getting your arse whipped at football... cobber.
This is good news for the people of Appalachia, and that drunk dude who used to sing for The Pogues.
FTA: ...first tested the low-intensity pulsed ultrasound treatment to repair dental tissue in rabbits in the late 1990s.
And you all thought that the Monty Python killer bunnies were a genetic malfunction. WRONG!
They were created in the laboratory by the innocent looking, mild mannered Canadian scientists.
this technology becomes "long in the tooth"?
Imagine tooth-driving (like war driving) in which the assailants deliver ultrasonics to their victims. In a few weeks old Charlie will have fangs, or Tennessee Tuxedo choppers. "What's sa matter Charlie? Choppers comin' loose" will be a revived funny denture commercial..
I wonder if the technology can be used to regrow the vestige human tail bone. Office ergonomics will revive a whole new bone of contention...
Call it "Ultra-teethe". Now, unsuspecting people (who cannot afford to have ultrasonic clandestine assault detectors (CADS)) can be made to tease out Klingon-like teeth. Even the cheek bones can be modified ultrasonically, giving rise to a whole new designer makeup market. Turn your enemies into lookalikes from the 1970's The Island or the 1970's Cornelius from Planet of the Apes. The ultra-deluxe package permits government to "brand" prison inmates, but those who move too much will be subject to indeterminate, random regrowth, such as one leg or a rib being longer than normal. Even the skull can be adapted. This could be a "true shape of things to come".
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
If your saliva's acidic, it'll dissolve away your enamel no matter what you do.
http://www.thebadbreathreport.com/ - best $20 I've ever spent. Please note that I could've signed up for his affiliate program, but this is just a plain link.
Also see http://www.euroamericanhealth.com/ - you could very well be a good candidate for his base powder, or baking soda at the least. Get some pH strips to test your saliva pH first, then you'll know what to do next.
Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
www.teslabox.com