Canadian Scientists Regrow Teeth 220
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."
Amazing (Score:3, Funny)
So if you are out there, Mr. Dentist man, you can now officially BITE ME!
Inevitable Discovery (Score:4, Funny)
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
Re:Inevitable Discovery (Score:3, Interesting)
Players who aren't goalies still don't wear face shields in 2006, however most facial injuries from hockey involve someone getting hit with the end of a stick or getting crushed into the boards by a bad hit, NOT getting hit with a puck (though it does happen sometimes).
Re:Inevitable Discovery (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Inevitable Discovery (Score:3, Informative)
Oh, and it isn't a sterotype. There are very few pro players who haven't lost a few chicklets along the way. Between sticks, pucks, hard hits, solid boards, and fights, about the only players who aren't missing a
Re:Inevitable Discovery (Score:2)
Re:Inevitable Discovery (Score:3, Insightful)
They do take a lot of sticks in the face, and I'm not sure I buy this whole "a visor limits me" thing. I'm sure someone can design a visor that doesn't "limit" them. Were I in the NHL, I wouldn't hesitate to wear a full face mask, especially playing as a defenseman where I'd block a lot of shots.
Re:Inevitable Discovery (Score:2)
Re:Inevitable Discovery (Score:3, Interesting)
AFAIK where I come from, players are required to have face shields. It seems it's still not mandated in the NHL..
It's worse than that. The NHL bans full face shields (with exceptions for players recovering from broken cheekbones,jawbones, etc). It's an incredibly stupid rule.
Re:Inevitable Discovery (Score:2)
Re:Inevitable Discovery (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Inevitable Discovery (Score:3, Informative)
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/hockey/news/2002
Re:Inevitable Discovery (Score:5, Funny)
Uh, because of all the missing teeth?
This story was front page news in the Globe and Mail (Canada's national newspaper) yesterday a with the headline "new hope for hocky players" (or something like that) and had pictures of vintage and current toothless hocky players.
Re:Inevitable Discovery (Score:2)
20 pieces of bridgework
36 crowns
56 false teeth
## something else
and then the priceless punchline.
The numbers were incredible. Of a team of like 2 dozen people they had underwent hundreds of dental procedures. Hockey is single-h
Re:Inevitable Discovery (Score:2)
This is plainly a reference to the puck. Other types of facial injury will be discussed in a separate thread. Do keep up!
Of course, if you'd asked why everyone has assumed that we're talking about hockey, *then* you'd have a point. I thought they were talking about tiddleywinks.
Re:Inevitable Discovery (Score:3, Funny)
So how exactly does it work? (Score:4, Interesting)
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 article has more details (Score:5, Informative)
Better Link, Article from Globe & Mail (Canada (Score:3, Informative)
For the engineers in the room...
http://www.ece.ualberta.ca/~jchen/ [ualberta.ca]
Article from the Globe & Mail
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.2 0060628.TEETH28/TPStory/National [theglobeandmail.com]
Re:This article has more details (Score:2)
Unfortunately, the article now includes only this limited summary:
Slashdot strikes again!
Re:So how exactly does it work? (Score:3, Insightful)
low frequency ultrasound is like saying: "Thank God, I'm atheist!"
I think they call it "Contradictio in adjecto" (see also: oxymoron [wikipedia.org])
Re:So how exactly does it work? (Score:2)
Re:So how exactly does it work? (Score:5, Funny)
It's the canadian way; american scientists would come to the same results by menacing the offending jawbone with a large-caliber pistol and shouting at it.
Re:So how exactly does it work? (Score:2)
Actually, as it turns out, ultrasound is more than a single frequency, and "low frequency ultrasound" is a perfectly cromulent phrase to denote the lower end of that range [google.com].
Sorry for picking the nit of the nit.
Re:So how exactly does it work? (Score:3, Funny)
Obviously you have a pressing interest in this cutting-edge technology.
Re:So how exactly does it work? (Score:2)
Re:So how exactly does it work? How long before (Score:2)
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 ca
This notice is to inform you... (Score:4, Funny)
-The Management
Re:This notice is to inform you... (Score:3, Funny)
*pssst*
Think of all the money you could make knocking your own teech out & selling them to the tooth fairy.
Re:This notice is to inform you... (Score:2)
Step 1: Grow Teeth
Step 2: ???
Step 3: PROFIT!
Great Test Bed (Score:2, Funny)
Gramps is getting sick of eating through a straw.
Geography lesson, etc (Score:2)
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
As a Canadian, I'd like to.. (Score:3, Funny)
Re:As a Canadian, I'd like to.. (Score:3, Funny)
Re:As a Canadian, I'd like to.. (Score:2)
Just our luck: humans are one of the few (or maybe only) species that don't actually have a penis bone. This actually would work on, say, dogs or something.
[cue educational cartoon "the more you know" banner]
Re:As a Canadian, I'd like to.. (Score:2)
Can you imagine breaking a penis bone? Ow ow ow. You'd have to wear a cast for weeks while under strict doctor's orders to avoid women and pornography.
Canada has really young scientists (Score:4, Funny)
A group of Canadian scientists in the age from 4 to 10 has successfully regrown their teeth after they mysteriously lost them.
Re:Canada has really young scientists (Score:2)
For Suckers (Score:3, Funny)
I thold you bruthing your theeth wath fo thuckerth !
Wow! (Score:2)
Root canal? (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Re:Root canal? (Score:3, Funny)
Or you could just, you know, brush them..... Oh wait.
Re:Root canal? (Score:2)
Re:Root canal? (Score:2)
Speaking as someone whose teeth were basically wrecked by an incompetent orthodontist years ago, I can promise you that not everyone with dental problems brought them upon themselves. My dentist often comments on how good my oral hygiene is, yet I have some sort of filling in nearly every tooth in my mouth.
Re:Root canal? (Score:3, Informative)
Saw this on the news last night - they said that it will repair root canals.
About the only thing it won't do is regrow a tooth that's been removed - it needs cells to start with.
Re:Root canal? (Score:2, Interesting)
Saw this on the news last night - they said that it will repair root canals.
About the only thing it won't do is regrow a tooth that's been removed - it needs cells to start with.
Sounds pie-in-the-sky at the moment to me. It may be that there is some viable periodontal ligament around necrotic teeth, but there's simply no living tooth-producing tissue in them (odontoblasts). Odontoblasts are found at the pulp-dentin border,
Re:Root canal? (Score:2)
It makes sense that this comes from Canada... (Score:4, Funny)
Thanks, I'll be here all week, enjoy the veal.
(Disclaimer: I am a Kentuckian)
Re:It makes sense that this comes from Canada... (Score:2)
For those who don't want to click the link above, it's West Virginia.
airlynx's post is like the stupid nightly news ads: "Are we going to get some rough weather this weekend? I'll tell you at 11 o'clock!" "This common cosmetic may cause heart failure -- tune in at 11!"
I hate those f'ing ads. Just tell me if it's going to rain. I'm not staying up for your idiotic show.
Medical research is too slow (Score:2, Interesting)
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 en
Re:Medical research is too slow (Score:3, Insightful)
A proper engineering job would have taken six months, max, and they could have kept working on the science.
You can figure out how long it would take to engineer a device you've just heard of all of 20 minutes ago from a short, non-technical article posted on slashdot?
Re:Medical research is too slow (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Medical research is too slow (Score:2)
The article did say the larger version is approved in Canada and the US, which means some pretty extensive testing.
I won't believe it... (Score:5, Funny)
1. The Justice dept. (SCO vs IBM)
2. The anti-trust dept. (MS vs US)
3. Other suggestions welcome...
Re:I won't believe it... (Score:2)
DOJ == "anti-trust dept."
What about bones illness? (Score:5, Interesting)
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 [wikipedia.org] or Osteosarcoma [wikipedia.org] ??
Thanks in advance.
Re:What about bones illness? (Score:2, Interesting)
Or- yeah...I suppose you could also use it to treat/cure degenerative bone loss symptoms. No reason it can't have multiple applications...Except maybe Patent law.
Re:What about bones illness? (Score:3, Informative)
As for osteoporosis, I would suspect stimulating growth is not the right way to go either -- the bones are there, it's the structure of the bone that is weakened. Exercise, calcium intake, Vitamin D intake, and sometimes Fosamax (slows down resorption of calcium) or hormone regimens (still experimental) are the treatments du jour.
Re:What about bones illness? (Score:2)
I think his point assumed that the standard treatment for osteosarcoma is to remove a large chunk of bone. After that, it might be handy to grow the bone back rather than implant large numbers of rods/pins/screws and donor bone tissue that could be rejected.
Re:What about bones illness? (Score:2)
Don't need 'em! (Score:3, Funny)
Just freakin' great. (Score:5, Funny)
Now all those nightmares I have about a woman with teeth in her vagina are going to come true.
Thanks a lot Canada!!
Re:Just freakin' great. (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Just freakin' great. (Score:2)
If a girl had a jaw spasm halfway through oral sex, that would suck (bada-baaa).
Of course, this is
Horse Hockey! (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Horse Hockey! (Score:2)
Re:Horse Hockey! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Horse Hockey! (Score:2)
Put this together with these guys [bbc.co.uk] and we could have a solution. That story dated 2004 says: "it could be five years before the technology is widely available to the general public"; probably too optimistic though.
Re:Horse Hockey! (Score:5, Informative)
I'm not sure about the rest, but this bit is wrong. Tooth enamel is worn down all the time by your teeth being used, both from abrasion and acidity; this is the normal way they are supposed to work. It is continually replaced by your body, through a chemical process based around your saliva that deposits minerals on the teeth from the outside. So long as the environment in your mouth is not acidic (ie, you haven't been eating sugary food recently) and your diet supplies all the necessary minerals (mostly calcium), fresh enamel will be deposited. Damaged enamel doesn't really need "fixing", you can just let it reform.
The reason why people tend to think that it can't reform is because the process that grows the teeth in the first place can't be repeated - that deposits enamel in a completely different manner. Also, the reenameling process is quite slow and will only work if you don't snack on sugary things all day.
The problem is when the tooth is damaged below the level of the enamel; this can't be regrown currently (and prevents the tooth from re-enameling over the top) because the damage from eating progresses faster than the tooth can heal. If the enamel has been worn through completely, damage to the tooth below is inevitable - that's when your dentist drills it out and fills it. If this invention can do something about that, it's a significant step forward.
Was this really needed? (Score:2)
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!
Regrow Teeth (Score:5, Funny)
So what makes this different from Exogen? Size (Score:2)
Exogen (website: http://www.exogen.com/ [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
End of dentures in sight? (Score:2)
Dr. McCoy would be jealous! (Score:2, Interesting)
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 i
Dental technology (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Gullibility of the Slashdot community (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Skeptibility of osgeek (Score:3, Informative)
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?
Re:Gullibility of the Slashdot community (Score:2)
This isn't about whether or not it would be possible to force teeth to grow. I believe that it might be possible to coax teeth to grow somehow. I'm just highly doubtful of press releases announcing patents with little or no peer-group testing (a dozen patients? Come on...). With ultrasound?
You just don't see REAL discoveries made like this.
Look at the re
Re:Gullibility of the Slashdot community (Score:2)
I claim that you're, at best, someone who is a sucker for press releases -- although it's also possible that you're a scum-sucking AC sock puppet.
Wow (Score:2, Funny)
crickets.chirp()
This is going to change the face... (Score:2)
And In Related News (Score:4, Funny)
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!"
So... (Score:3, Funny)
Not new exactly (Score:4, Informative)
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.
Re:Not new exactly (Score:2)
The Door Into Summer (Score:2)
Re:The Door Into Summer (Score:3, Insightful)
But even he would say it was an obvious step. We've been needing this for as long as there've been people... BUT KUDOS for you, sir, for remembering science fiction didn't start on television and movies. Or anime.
There's treasure in the golden age of science fiction. A lot more imagination than displayed in current "sci-fi", which is to science fiction as Hostess
Surprised it wasn't the British (Score:2)
Heard it all before... (Score:2)
Hum a Few Bars (Score:2)
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?
Bullshitometer - levels dangerously high (Score:2)
Like many small mammals, rabbits teeth grow continually their entire life. They have to chew things constantly to keep them trimmed down. This isn't news, it's just plain
Re:Tyranny Of Patents (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Tyranny Of Patents (Score:2)
Re:Tyranny Of Patents (Score:2)
Re:Tyranny Of Patents (Score:2)
Most engineering professors get the money for their research by directly appealing to outside organizations. Though the university/public pays their salary, this is for teaching and for the prestige that they bring to the university, not for their research.
Patents are less than useless to society. A competator is co
Re:Tyranny Of Patents (Score:2)
Let's say I do invent something, patent it, and a large company uses my invention without the patent being licenced. What am I supposed to do? Start a civil action? No legal action is possible on my part because of the relative sizes of the two organ
Re:Tyranny Of Patents (Score:2)
What a crock of shit. It happens all the time. Ever hear of pro bono or lawyers taking a percentage of the settlement?
What you espouse is no more than your opinion phrases as if it's truth. Perhaps you don't read enough.
"The small inventor stands a better chance with no patent system, as at least his business won't be torpedoed his larger competators' submarine patents."
No, dimwit, it would be t
Re:Tyranny Of Patents (Score:2)
First of all, to make a business and sell a product, you have to have investors. To convince investors to invest, you need to disclose information. That's a fact: you cannot simply "hold on to your trade secrets." Secondly, if your case against the large company really is so cut-and-dry, any good lawyer would be happy
Re:Presence of stump? (Score:3, Interesting)
There's also a good potential for this to be used for body modification. Easy enough to add things to the diet to impart a color into the tooth while it grows (one reason why kids aren't given tetracycline -- it makes their growing te
Re:Presence of stump? (Score:2)
I'm missing three teeth, including 2 incisors, and have a couple of root canals that will probably eventually need to be pulled. At this point I don't care if they're white, black or green; I'