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Ever had this happen to you? It's really kind of weird.

BARBOURVILLE, Ky. — In the 18 years he has been visiting nursing homes, seeing patients in his private practice and, more recently, driving his mobile dental clinic through Appalachian hills and hollows, Dr. Edwin E. Smith has seen the extremes of neglect. He has seen the shame of a 14-year-old girl who would not lift her head because she had lost most of her teeth from malnutrition, and the do-it-yourself pride of an elderly mountain man who, unable to afford a dentist, pulled his own infected teeth with a pair of pliers and a swig of peroxide. He has seen...

Bioden has discovered a new method of extracting stem cells that is attracting research interest from across the world. Experts from across the globe are sending milk teeth to Bioeden in Daresbury following the discovery by US cellular biologist Dr Shi, based at the UK lab, that stem cells can be found in teeth. Dentist David James from the bioscience firm has secured a patent on the method used to extract stem cells from milk teeth and explained to the Warrington Guardian that despite working with scientists from India, Italy and the US, Daresbury proved the best location for the...

Falling numbers of NHS dentists are forcing many patients to go without treatment or even try pulling out their own teeth, a study has revealed. Cost is a major factor. Almost a fifth (19%) of those questioned said they had missed out on dental work because of the cost. The research found 6% had even resorted to treating themselves because they could not find a dentist. The 5,000-plus patients who were interviewed also spoke of taking out their own teeth or fixing broken crowns with glue. One person in Lancashire said he had carried out 14 separate extractions with a...

Large numbers of people are going without dental treatment and some even report extracting their own teeth because they cannot find an NHS dentist in their area, a survey reveals today. The Dentistry Watch survey of more than 5,000 people, from the Commission for Patient and Public Involvement in Health, found widespread unhappiness among both patients and dentists despite government reforms to increase the availability of NHS dentistry. More than three-quarters of those who have a private dentist consider they were forced into it because their own dentist went private or they could not find an NHS dentist. Just over...

Two molar teeth of around 63,400 years old show that Neanderthal predecessors of humans may have been dental hygiene fans, the Web site of newspaper El Pais reported on Tuesday. The teeth have "grooves formed by the passage of a pointed object, which confirms the use of a small stick for cleaning the mouth," Paleontology Professor Juan Luis Asuarga told reporters, presenting an archaeological find in Madrid. The fossils, unearthed in Pinilla del Valle, are the first human examples found in the Madrid region in 25 years, the regional government's culture department said.......

How do you pull a tooth from a Bengal tiger? The answer, of course, is very carefully. British dentist Paul Cassar and Lisa Milella, a veterinary surgeon specialising in animal dentistry, recently travelled to India to treat some unusual patients. Mohan, a full-grown male tiger weighing more than 400lbs, and with paws the size of small dinner plates, and Maneka, a female, are former circus performers who now live in a rescue centre in Bannerghatta near Bangalore in southern India. The centre is run by the Sussex-based charity International Animal Rescue (IAR) which also has a rescue centre for bears...

Opening King Tut's tomb brought to light treasures and curses hidden for thousands of years. One of the lat ter still haunts us -- the curse of King Tut's tooth. Tut, like many teenagers, needed a tooth extraction, in his case, an impacted wisdom tooth. Sadly, ancient Egyptian dentistry was unable to help the boy-pharaoh, as extractions were done only on very loose teeth, by the gentle touch of fingers. Even forceps (pliers) were probably not employed until long after Tut died. Astonishingly, modern dental extraction procedures are still mired in the technology of the an cient world. Recently, I...

OLYMPIA, Wash. - An oral surgeon who temporarily implanted fake boar tusks in his assistant's mouth as a practical joke and got sued for it has gotten the state's high court to back up his gag. Dr. Robert Woo of Auburn had put in the phony tusks while the woman was under anesthesia for a different procedure. He took them out before she awoke, but he first shot photos that eventually made it around the office. The employee, Tina Alberts, felt so humiliated when she saw the pictures that she quit and sued her boss.

Prankster dentist wins case against insurer27 Jul 2007, 0733 hrs IST,AP OLYMPIA, WASHINGTON: An oral surgeon who played a practical joke on his assistant by implanting fake boar tusks in her mouth while she was under anesthesia was sued for it, but ended up getting a last laugh. Dr. Robert Woo, who is originally from Hong Kong, took photos of her porcine dental work that later made the rounds. The employee, Tina Alberts, felt humiliated and quit, later suing her boss. When Woo's insurance company, Fireman's Fund, would not deal with the lawsuit, Woo settled out of court with...

The European Commission today confirmed reception of a formal notification from the Spanish Authorities relating to a decision to withdraw from the Spanish market two brands of toothpaste of Chinese origin because of a risk to public health. The formal notification is part of the EU wide Rapid Alert System for non-food dangerous products (RAPEX), that alerts and co-ordinates an EU wide response to dangerous consumer goods found in the Single Market. The notification relates to two brands of toothpaste: Spearmint and Trileaf Spearmint. Spanish laboratory tests have detected the presence of DEG (diethylene glycol) a substance used in antifreeze...

Police: Unlicensed Dentist Operated on Immigrants Last Update:5/2/2007 12:24:51 PM Web Editor: Bernie O'Donnell CARROLLTON, Ga. (AP) -- Authorities have arrested an illegal immigrant on charges that he ran an unlicensed dental practice out of his home in Carrollton. Ernesto Estrado is accused of performing procedures on hundreds of illegal immigrants who were too afraid to go to a licensed dentist. Authorities say the man used pliers, box cutters and etching blades he bought at a hardware store to pull teeth, fill cavities and create dentures. Authorities searched his home and found prescription painkillers, hypodermic needles and a ledger that...

[A]ncient tartar-encrusted teeth may be a biological gold mine for scientists, thanks to a new technique for extracting food particles from teeth that once belonged to prehistoric humans. The method already has solved a mystery surrounding what early coastal Brazilians ate. In the future, similar studies may reveal clues about other ancient diets, particularly in areas with little plant preservation from earlier times... Eggers explained that ancient tartar could reveal what an individual ate in the days or weeks before death. Evidence suggests some prehistoric populations cleaned their teeth -- using fibrous foods and shell fragments as natural abrasives --...

Denture wearers take heart. Scientists in Japan claim they have for the first time developed a reliable way to generate new mouse teeth in a Petri dish. Although any application to humans is years away, the team hopes the new approach could eventually lead to the regeneration of entire organs in the lab. Bioengeered organs are still in the earliest stage of development. Last year, Anthony Atala of Wake Forest University Medical School in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and his colleagues transplanted some lab-grown bladders into human patients, a first for a discrete, complex organ. Efforts to grow working teeth, however,...

Source: Harvard School of Public Health Date: January 17, 2007 Link Found Between Periodontal Disease And Pancreatic Cancer Science Daily — Pancreatic cancer is the fourth leading cause of cancer death in the U.S.; more than 30,000 Americans are expected to die from the disease this year. It is an extremely difficult cancer to treat and little is known about what causes it. One established risk factor in pancreatic cancer is cigarette smoking; other links have been made to obesity, diabetes type 2 and insulin resistance. In a new study, researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) and...

Stem cells from may help scientists grow parts of teeth you may need in the future. Researchers from University of Southern California School of Dentistry have regenerated tooth roots and ligaments to restore tooth function in pigs. They believe this breakthrough looks very promising to use in people. Scientists used stem cells harvested from the extracted wisdom teeth of 18-to 20-year-olds to create enough root and ligament structure to support the restoration of a crown in their pig model. The restoration was similar to the original tooth in function and strength. The technique uses stem cells harvested from the root...

The promise of stem cells may someday help kids say goodbye to the dreaded root canal, scientists report.   A new, less-invasive treatment leaves the soft inner pulp intact, allowing the young tooth's stem cells to continue tooth formation.  "Removing infected tissue by root canal is invasive, and, by doing that, we stop the tooth's continuous maturation process and leave behind a child with a thin eggshell of a tooth that is weak and susceptible to fracture," explained researcher Dr. George T.-J. Huang, an endodontist (root canal specialist) and an associate professor with the University of Maryland's College of Dental Surgery. ...

Surfer fights off shark attack near Florence jetty    VIDEO   FLORENCE, Ore. - A surfer says he will return to the ocean after he was attacked by a shark that bit his foot, requiring more than 30 stitches. Tom Larson was surfing Tuesday with a small group off the South Jetty when his buddy, Keenan Keeley, thought he saw a dorsal fin. "We were like, 'No, dude, that's a porpoise,"' the 23-year-old welder from Eugene said. "We'd seen some porpoises in the water earlier." Larson said conditions appeared safe - no wind, no ominous overcast skies, no sea...

A team of researchers has succeeded in engineering stem cells taken from tooth germ to quickly develop into liver or bone tissue, the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology's Research Institute (AIST) for Cell Engineering said. A joint team of scientists from the institute and Osaka University succeeded in repairing damaged liver and bones in rats using stem cells taken from wisdom tooth germ. The finding raises hopes of developing regenerative medicine using wisdom teeth germ taken from people during orthodontic treatments. Tooth germ disappears as a tooth is formed, but that of a wisdom tooth stays in...

Former US president Jimmy Carter lashed out at British Prime Minister Tony Blair for being "so compliant and subservient" to the Bush administration in Washington. "I have been surprised and extremely disappointed with Tony Blair's behaviour," Carter told the Sunday Telegraph newspaper as he promoted his new book "Faith and Freedom." "I think that, more than any other person in the world, the prime minister could have had a moderating influence on Washington, and he has not," said the 81-year-old former head of state. He faulted Blair for not having been a constraint on US President George W. Bush's decision...