IF SHARKS CAN DO IT, WHY CAN’T WE? Grow Your Own eeth
The dental industry is teeming with new, exciting technologies that provide more realistic results when it comes to tooth implants. Perhaps the most exciting new development is the ability to grow teeth in a lab. When biology and dentistry combine, the possibilities are endless. HOW CAN YOU GROW TEETH? Scientists have discovered a way to regrow teeth using stem cells taken from the pulp of a healthy adult tooth. The pulp is isolated and coaxed into forming new dentin and eventually a tooth bud, which can then grow into a mature tooth. Pam Yelick, a professor in the department of orthodontics at Tufts University School of Dental Medicine, and her team have spent years researching this new technology and continue to perfect it. Their goal is to create an implant that is nearly identical to a real tooth in function, feel, and appearance. THE IDEA BEHIND IT Sharks and snakes are constantly losing and regrowing teeth. These two animals first inspired scientists to investigate whether they could develop the technology to replicate this evolutionary benefit for humans. The ability to regrow teeth so quickly after an old one has fallen out or broken off is due to the genetics of these animals. To grow teeth properly, two types of cells are required: epithelial cells and mesenchymal stem cells. One type of cell functions as a messenger
to the other, instructing it to form tooth buds. For both cells to function, they must be given the correct mixture of growth hormones and nutrients, and they must be grown on a “scaffold,” an environment that closely mimics embryonic tissue.
FUTURE POSSIBILITIES What’s catching the attention of the public is how quick and easy this method could potentially be. Instead of undergoing serious dental surgery, patients would only need a routine operation for the tooth bud to be placed. However, researchers and scientists still face several hurdles. For example, the epithelial cells seem to respond to gum tissue after this kind of surgery, but the mesenchymal cells don’t. Though it's rumored that human trials will begin in 2019, it’s likely to be some time before this technology becomes common practice. Still, it’s interesting to imagine a future in which growing teeth would be as easy for humans as it is for some of our sharp-toothed animal friends.
WHY THERE ARE KIDS ON YOUR PORCH ASKING FOR CANDY
The History of Trick-or-Treating
As Halloween looms and you load up your grocery cart with candy, you may ask yourself, “Why do I provide these
of the living and the dead. To trick the spirits leaking into our world, young men donned flowing white costumes and black masks — a great disguise when ghosts were about.
spooky gremlins with a sugar high every Oct. 31, anyway?” Well, when your doorbell starts ringing around 6 p.m. this All Hallows’ Eve, you can thank the Celts for this tradition of candy and costumes.
The Catholic Church was never a big fan of these pagan traditions, so they renamed it “All Saints’ Day” and gussied it up in religious garb. By the 11th century, people were dressing up as saints, angels, and the occasional demon instead of spirits. Eventually, costumed children started tearing through town begging for food and money and singing a song or prayer in return — a practice called “souling.”
Halloween itself is a kind of mishmash of four different cultural festivals of old: two Roman fêtes, which commemorated the dead and the goddess of fruit and trees (not at the same time); the Celtic Samuin or Samhain, a new year’s party thrown at the end of our summer; and the Catholic All Saint’s Day, designed to replace Samuin and divorce it from its pagan origins.
But when did they start dressing up as Minions? Starting in the 19th century, souling turned to “guising,” which gave way to trick- or-treating in mid-20th-century America, and the costumes diversified. So put on some clown makeup and a big smile, scoop up a handful of sweets, and scare the
Long before there were young'uns on your porch dressed as Thanos with candy-filled pillowcases in hand, the Celts believed that Samuin marked an overlapping of the realms
living daylights out of ‘em — ‘tis the season!
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