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In a new analysis of thousands of teeth from ancient skeletons buried at a site near Naples, Italy, archaeologists have discovered that people were using their mouths to help with their work -- occupations that likely involved processing hemp into string and fabric. We all use our teeth as tools -- to open bottles, hold pieces of paper, or even smoke a pipe. When we do this, we open ourselves up to the possibility of cracking our teeth but also create microscopic grooves and injuries to the enamel surface. Since teeth don't remodel like bones do, these tiny insults remain...

Teeth from long-dead people and animals are divulging the history of modern-day pathogens.Ancient DNA extracted from the teeth of humans who lived long ago is yielding new information about pathogens past and present. In one of the latest studies, researchers uncovered and sequenced ancient herpes genomes for the first time, from the teeth of long-dead Europeans. The strain of herpes virus that causes lip sores in people today — called HSV-1 — was once thought to have emerged in Africa more than 50,000 years ago. But the new data, published in Science Advances on 27 July1, indicate that its origin...

A man with a metal detector searching a freshly plowed carrot field in Switzerland found a large ornate jewelry set dating to the Bronze Age — as well as other surprising items including a bear's tooth, a beaver's tooth and a fossilized shark's tooth, local officials said this week. Franz Zahn made the unusual discovery in August while he was "out and about in a freshly harvested carrot field" in Güttingen, about 50 miles northeast of Zurich, officials from Thurgau Canton said in a Monday news release. Zahn initially found a bronze disc, and immediately realized it was an "extraordinary...

Like the teeth themselves, under the right conditions the gunk on your teeth may survive not just thousands but millions of years in the grave. Isn't that good to know.Advanced dental decay and plaque buildup have been detected in Dryopithecus carinthiacus, a primate that lived in Europe 12.5 million years ago, suggesting it doted on high-sugar fruit. Sivapithecus sivalensis, who lived between 9.3 to 8.7 million years ago in Pakistan, was also apparently frugivorous. Analysis of ancient plaque has shed light on the mobility of Neanderthals and other hominins, as implied by dietary changes, and shored up the thesis that...

JENA, GERMANY—Phys.org reports that a study of genetic material recovered from the teeth of people buried in the Hagios Charalambos cave on the Greek island of Crete between about 2290 and 1909 B.C. detected the presence of extinct strains of two pathogens. Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, the British School at Athens, and Temple University suggest that epidemics brought about by Y. pestis, which causes plague, and S. enterica, which causes typhoid fever, could have contributed to the collapse of Egypt’s Old Kingdom and the Akkadian...

The little-known tree that revolutionised global communicationJuly 27, 2022 | BBC Reel

The discovery by researchers led from the University of Toulouse–Jean Jaurès was made in the 'Grotte Mandrin', 1.5 miles south of Malataverne, in the Rhône Valley.Previously, the oldest proven examples of modern human settlements in Europe were dated back to 45,000–43,000 years ago — 10,000 years earlier.Furthermore, the Mandrin cave also provides the first clear example of a site that was alternately occupied by Neanderthals and modern humans (Homo sapiens).

Older adults who experience tooth loss are at increased risk for cognitive impairment and dementia, and their risk grows with each tooth lost, a study published Thursday by JAMDA: The Journal of Post-Acute and Long-Term Care Medicine found. However, older adults with dentures do not share this increased risk, suggesting that timely treatment with implants may protect against cognitive decline, the researchers said. "Our findings underscore the importance of maintaining good oral health and its role in helping to preserve cognitive function," study co-author Bei Wu said in a press release. "It's important to gain a deeper understanding of the...

At a prehistoric archaeological site in Turkey, researchers have discovered two 8,500-year-old human teeth, which had been used as pendants in a necklace or bracelet. Researchers have never documented this practice before in the prehistoric Near East, and the rarity of the find suggests that the human teeth were imbued with profound symbolic meaning for the people who wore them. During excavations at the Neolithic site of Çatalhöyük in Turkey between 2013 and 2015, researchers found three 8,500-year-old-teeth that appeared to have been intentionally drilled to be worn as beads in a necklace or bracelet. Subsequent macroscopic, microscopic and radiographic...

LOS ALGODONES, Mexico ― The billboards that line the stretch of California’s Interstate 8 headed toward Los Algodones make it clear travelers are not on their way to a typical tourism destination. The signs that beckon Americans as they head west toward Andrade, California’s narrow border crossing, aren’t for resorts or beaches but for dental clinics offering bridges and root canals at half what they cost in the United States. Dental care has become big business here over the last two decades, so much so that American visitors have taken to calling it “Molar City.” An estimated 600 dentists operate...

One of the most enduring myths about George Washington is that his dentures were made of wood. While this tall tale isn't backed up in truth, Washington's problems with his dental hygiene are long-chronicled and are likely to have cause the leader great pain. What we do know is that Washington turned to dentures made of hippo ivory and human 'slave teeth' to try and cure his woes. The true story is revealed in an in-depth article by William Maloney, clinical associate professor of dentistry at New York University for The Conversation.

The pottery vessel, adorned with the painting of an antelope, caught the eye of Karl Martin while he was browsing a yard sale five years ago. He picked the jar up, along with another pot, for about $5 (4 pounds). "I liked it straight away," Martin said in a statement from Hansons Auctioneers, where he now works and where the pottery was auctioned — selling for about $100 (80 pounds) in November. The jar dates to the Indus Valley Harappan civilization, which thrived in the northwestern regions of South Asia during the Bronze Age, according to James Brenchley, head of...

Credit: Mathieu Duval ========================================================================= First direct dating of an early human tooth confirms the antiquity of Homo antecessor, western Europe's oldest known human fossil species. A previous find from the unit TD6 of Atapuerca Gran Dolina archaeological site in northern Spain has yielded more information about our early human lineage. An international team of researchers from Australia, China, France and Spain has conducted the first direct dating study of a fossil tooth belonging to Homo antecessor (H. antecessor), the earliest known hominin species identified in Europe. The study shows that H. antecessor probably lived somewhere between 772 000 and 949...

Thousands of Americans and Canadians travel to Mexico every year to get dental work done for much less than it would cost them at home. Some return home completely satisfied with the treatment they received and the money they saved but for others, the experience can be very different. With that in mind, the Canadian television network CTV posed the question: how risky is dental tourism? “The only real guarantee is that there are no guarantees,” a CTV newscaster said when introducing the story. Dr. Vikram Grewal, a dentist from Kelowna, British Columbia, told CTV that he has seen both...

Researchers recently discovered certain drugs, including one developed to treat Alzheimer’s, stimulate innate self-repair mechanismsFor dentists, a cavity is a conundrum—in order to save the tooth they must further damage it. Currently, the primary way to treat a cavity is to excavate the decay and the surrounding area before filling the resulting crater with a durable surrogate material such as metal, plastic or glass cement. But what if instead of drilling holes into teeth and patching them up with synthetic fillers, dentists could coax our pearly whites to regrow themselves? Recently, Paul Sharpe, a bioengineer at King’s College London, and...

I was huddled in a Connecticut legislative hearing room on a chilly spring morning three years ago, awaiting my chance to testify about a proposal to over-regulate e-cigarettes. I’m a big fan of innovation, so I’m always eager to speak out against entrenched interests seeking to stifle progress with regulations designed to kill improvements in our health. Proponents of more regulation regularly use scare tactics, shoddy science and false allegations that people like me are against “all regulation.” The Public Health Committee hearing room in Hartford was packed with people on both sides of the divide, waiting to address a...

Root canals are always fun, right? In reality, word that you need a root canal is some of the worst news most people get at the dentist. Whenever your dentist tells you that's the next procedure you're going have to go through, two things are clear beyond the pain you're about to endure: One, that your throbbing will finally soon go away, and the second is that the tooth that's getting the root canal is dead. However, researchers have come up with a new kind of biomaterial that not only encourages the natural regeneration of teeth, but also might eliminate...

A scanning electron microscope image of newly-grown enamel using amelogenin-chitosan hydrogel. Credit: Herman Ostrow School of Dentistry of USC ==================================================================================================== Dual discoveries at USC propose a promising method to regrow nonliving hard tissue, lessening or even eliminating pain associated with tooth decay, which the National Institutes of Health calls the most prevalent chronic disease. Janet Moradian-Oldak, a professor at the Herman Ostrow School of Dentistry of USC, has investigated methods to regrow tooth enamel for the past two decades. The process is especially tricky because unlike bone, mature enamel cannot rejuvenate. Tooth enamel is a nonliving tissue. The a-ha moment...

Scientists in London develop pain-free filling that allows teeth to repair themselves without drilling or injections The tooth-rebuilding technique developed at King's College London does away with fillings and instead encourages teeth to repair themselves. Tooth decay is normally removed by drilling, after which the cavity is filled with a material such as amalgam or composite resin. The new treatment, called Electrically Accelerated and Enhanced Remineralisation (EAER), accelerates the natural movement of calcium and phosphate minerals into the damaged tooth. A two-step process first prepares the damaged area of enamel, then uses a tiny electric current to push minerals into...

A 16-year-old French volunteer archaeologist has found an adult tooth dating back around 560,000 years in southwestern France, in what researchers hailed as a "major discovery" Tuesday. "A large adult tooth—we can't say if it was from a male or female—was found during excavations of soil we know to be between 550,000 and 580,000 years old, because we used different dating methods," paleoanthropologist Amelie Viallet told AFP. "This is a major discovery because we have very few human fossils from this period in Europe," she said. The tooth was found in the Arago cave near the village of Tautavel, one...