Well played subby.

It's a pretty neat concept...which would completely bankrupt the dental industry. I suspect the inventors will die in a freak dental floss accident and all their research will be damaged in a bizarre fluoride explosion.

This is really neat though, it's like gassing a refugee camp with something that only kills Taliban, while leaving the good people to keep doing good things

Just what we need, more drug resistant bacteria.

Would this also eliminate gum decay? Cause that's what dentists all harp on about to justify going to them every six months even though it's obvious your teeth are fine.

Once this hits the shelves, I will finally be able to prove that my dentists have been planting cavity seeds in my mouth every time I've gone in for a visit.

/I'm on to you, you shiny-toothed bastards.

Lochsteppe Once this hits the shelves, I will finally be able to prove that my dentists have been planting cavity seeds in my mouth every time I've gone in for a visit.

You should put some tinfoil tents on your teeth. Especially the ones with the metal fillings, those are the most susceptible to the seeds.

Please oh please don't let the patents for this end up in the hands of some corporate giant...

EatHam: "With this new antimicrobial technology, we have the prospect of actually wiping out tooth decay in our lifetime," Dr. Shi, chair of the oral biology section at the UCLA School of Dentistry, said in a written statement., immediately before his invention produced super microbes resistant to everything we currently have the technology to produce

An antibiotic that targets just one type of bacteria would be less likely to cause resistant strains. With the rest of the fauna and flora still in place, a mutant that was immune would have less of a chance to flourish.

Nice that this will be coming out soon. I remember some talk about research into S. mutans specific antibodies produced by plants (platibodies... *groan*). That technique involved an initial alcohol rinse to kill all bacteria, then using the anitbody to specifically retard S. mutans growth while allowing other bacteria to restore itself.

Now that's how you write a Fark headline.

"We let the mouth grow grass, and we prevent the weeds from coming back," shiatold CBS News.

Sometimes it's best to let the analogy stand alone. This just doesn't sound right.


I like the idea though.

I get cavities constantly so this is great news for me! Apparently drowning them in Scotch doesn't work that well.

/God I hate going to the dentist

Cool, so that means we can stop fluoridating municipal water supplies now, right, guys?

/tinfoil hat firmly cinched with a chinstrap

STAMP-resistant S. mutans in 3.. 2..

At best, I predict this will give us a decade or two of decay-free teeth -- followed by another century of alcohol- and flouride-based prevention. At worst, we'll need much stronger stuff a decade or two from now, and once that arms race gets going, we might never catch up. Within a century, bionic teeth might be necessary.