Free Republic

Put a guy in a dental chair, and he turns into a wimp.In a new survey of 171 Chicago area dentists, 49 percent said males are more anxious when it comes to dental appointments, while only 15 percent thought females were the scaredy-cats. The survey is being released at the Chicago Dental Society's annual meeting at McCormick Place. "The bigger they are, the more they fear," said Niles dentist Alice Boghosian, who recalled one man who came in with a broken tooth. CHICAGO'S TOP SMILES Dentists chose the best smiles from a list of five local celebrities. Oprah Winfrey: 49...

A toothpaste has been developed that can rapidly and seamlessly fix little cavities without need for drilling. Dental paste of synthetic tooth enamel could revolutionise treatment of tiny early lesions, says the study published today in the journal Nature by Dr Kazue Yamagishi, of the FAP Dental Institute, Tokyo. Tooth decay is normally treated by removal of the affected part, then filling the hole with a resin or metal alloy. This is less than ideal because a lot of healthy tooth must be removed to make the fillings stick. Dr Yamagishi and colleagues developed a crystalline white paste of modified...

D.J., a hulking 25-year-old Chicago construction worker, has six new gold teeth in his mouth. No, make that eight teeth --- six gold and two platinum ones. Cost: $1,300. In hip hop parlance, they are called "grills" and "fronts" --- a fashion statement and a state of mind where the more the merrier and the gaudier the better. From Birmingham, Ala., to the Bay Area in California, multiple gold teeth are popping up in the nation's mouths --- to the delight of some, the dismay of others and the confusion of many. Once the province of moneyed rappers like Master...