Dentist
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Australian court orders Google to reveal user who wrote a dentist’s bad review
A federal court has ordered Google to identify an anonymous user who left a bad review of an Australian dental surgeon's practice, according to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. He said the patient hurt his business by advising other users to "stay away" from a procedure while calling it "extremely awkward and uncomfortable" and "a complete waste of time."
A dentist made a game in MS Paint and it's terrifying
The scariest thing about World of Horror might be the fact that it's being lovingly crafted by a part-time dentist. Pawel Kozminski is the sole creator of World of Horror, and he also practices dentistry in Poland, splitting his time between poking at people's molars and placing pixels in the perfect spots using MS Paint. Yes, that Paint.
Dentist offices across the US hit with ransomware
Hundreds of dentist offices around the United States were hit with ransomware this week according to multiple reports from ZDNet, CNN and security researcher Brian Krebs. The incidents are the result of an apparent vulnerability in software provided by The Digital Dental Record and PerCSoft, two Wisconsin-based companies that offer medical record retention and backup services to dental practices.
Scientists create 'tooth cracker' device to harvest stem cells
That pesky wisdom tooth you're glad you got rid of is apparently a great source of stem cells that could save lives. However, it's not easy getting to the tooth root pulp that contains those cells: drilling into the tooth generates damaging heat that lowers the number of cells that can be harvested. In addition, the water used to rinse the tooth could have corrosive elements and the enamel particulates from the drilling could contaminate the pulp. To solve that issue, a team of researchers from the University of Nevada Las Vegas have developed a device they hilarious call the "Tooth Cracker 5000" to extract 80 percent of the stem cells a pulp contains.
Some brave soul volunteered for a completely robotic dental surgery
A robot just implanted two 3D-printed teeth into a woman's mouth all on its own. The procedure took place recently in China and the researchers who developed it hope it can help the country's dentist shortage problem, reports the South China Morning Post.
Researchers are using VR to make dentist visits less painful
Like airlines, dentists understand that the more they can distract you from what they're doing, the better off everyone will be. UK researchers wanted see if virtual reality can ease patient pain and anxiety, so they enlisted 79 people who needed a tooth pulled or cavity filled. Patients were divided into three groups: One that viewed a VR coastal scene, one a VR city, and the other, no virtual reality at all.
Disney can digitally recreate your teeth
Digital models of humans can be uncannily accurate these days, but there's at least one area where they fall short: teeth. Unless you're willing to scan the inside of someone's mouth, you aren't going to get a very faithful representation of someone's pearly whites. Disney Research and ETH Zurich, however, have a far easier solution. They've just developed a technique to digitally recreate teeth beyond the gum line using little more than source data and everyday imagery. The team used 86 3D scans to create a model for an "average" set of teeth, and wrote an algorithm that adapts that model based on what it sees in the contours of teeth in photos and videos.
Regenerative tooth fillings could put an end to root canals
You really don't want a root canal, and not just because it's potentially painful. Emptying the tooth of the infected tissue at its heart potentially weakens it, since you can't grow that organic material back or put toxic fillings in its place. Researchers may have a solution, though. They've crafted fillings that get the tooth's own stem cells to regenerate and repair tissue. This doesn't mean that your pearly whites would return to normal, but the substance could heal the tooth enough to spare you a root canal or prevent fillings from going south.
ICYMI: Man-made meteor showers and live molar video
#fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-338559{display:none;} .cke_show_borders #fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-338559, #postcontentcontainer #fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-338559{width:570px;display:block;} try{document.getElementById("fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-338559").style.display="none";}catch(e){}Today on In Case You Missed It: Startup Star-ALE wants to create man-made meteor shower tech in time for the Tokyo Olympics in 2020. The Prophix is a video toothbrush tool that can live stream your choppers and save pictures of them to an app in case you're obsessed with the way your teeth look.
ICYMI: Reading a fly's mind, real Minecraft phone and more
#fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-44671{display:none;} .cke_show_borders #fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-44671, #postcontentcontainer #fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-44671{width:570px;display:block;}try{document.getElementById("fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-44671").style.display="none";}catch(e){}Today on In Case You Missed It: Neuroscientists figured out what fruit flies are thinking with fluorescent molecules. Minecraft now has an internal smartphone that can be used to text and call people within the game. And this new smart flossing product that gives a strip of floss once the button is pushed also serves to shame your partner for not flossing with lights that come on if a daily cleaning is missed.
'Painless' dental cavity procedure regrows tooth enamel
When a dentist says the word "cavity" a lot of people sweat thinking about painful injections and relentless drilling. But scientists in Britain have developed a new procedure dubbed EAER, or "Electrically Assisted Enhanced Remineralisation," that can repair a slightly decayed tooth before a deep cavity forms. The supposedly painless procedure involves cleaning (not drilling) the tooth of any signs of mild decay, then flushing it with minerals and stimulating it with an electric pulse. This pushes the minerals into the deepest part of the lesion and speeds up a naturally occurring process called "remineralization". This is where minerals in your saliva and some foods enter the tooth enamel and make it stronger.
Put your back out again? Doctors now available to order through Zesty
Zesty.co.uk launched this time last year as an online portal for booking last-minute dentist appointments at clinics across London. While it's no doubt been useful for anyone that needs an emergency (and likely extortionately priced) filling, the site has now expanded to help you access other healthcare services at short notice. Whether you're in need of a chiropractor, osteopath, physiotherapist or sexual health professional, you can use Zesty to check for open appointments in your local area. You can even book in to see a GP, but only at private clinics -- for a short-notice slot at your own NHS surgery, we're afraid you'll still have to be on the phone by 7am. In its quest to "make healthcare appointments as easy as ordering a pizza," Zesty plans to go almost UK-wide later this year and release a native app to compliment its mobile-optimised site. Before you get the wrong impression from Zesty's strange tagline and accompanying imagery: your pizza delivery guy is not qualified to give medical advice.
I spy with my little eye-tooth: The Oral B smart toothbrush
Joining our list of "things that shouldn't connect to your iPhone, but for some reason can," we bring you the Oral B smart toothbrush. This new device enables your dentist to spy on your mouth for the greater good. Oral B's new iOS-compatible Bluetooth-linked toothbrush tracks your brushing habits and collects data on every brush stroke. A free companion app for iOS and Android will offer step-by-step guidance on brushing -- and possibly on how to breathe in and out, how to brush your hair, and how to walk across a room. In related news, the NSA has issued a public statement that they will only monitor brushing metadata and will not seek specific toothbrush habit information without a warrant.
Oral-B smart toothbrush will make sure you're following your dentist's advice
Two can play the smartphone-savvy toothbrush game, it seems. Procter & Gamble tells Reuters that it's releasing an Oral-B toothbrush (pictured above) that, like its Kolibree rival, will talk to your smartphone via Bluetooth to show how well you're cleaning your teeth. Dentists will play a more important role here, however -- they can program the companion app to make sure you're cleaning spots you tend to miss. Ideally, this will prevent the tendency to slack off following a check-up. The smart brush will be one of the priciest models in the Oral-B line at £199 ($331) when it ships in June, but it may be worth the expense if it spares you from any cavities.
Philips Sonicare DiamondClean USB toothbrush to stay fresh at your desk
For the modern dental enthusiast, we present to you the Philips Sonicare DiamondClean USB toothbrush -- because keeping your stank breath fresh at your computer is essential for early morning Skype calls. Long since gone are the days where brushing your teeth was limited to the bathroom. Nowadays, you'll need to keep those chompers fresh no matter where you might find yourself, including (but not limited to): the computer lab at school, your home office, your boss' office, or maybe even the Apple Store. Claiming up to 100 percent plaque removal and 44 percent more bristles, some are going so far as to call this £250 ($405) teeth gleamer the "iPod of toothbrushes." Check out the full PR and the so fresh, so clean jam after the break. Update: the folks at Philips emailed to let us know the USB toothbrush will sell for a suggested $219.99 in the US.
Hanako 2 robot acts like a human dental patient, makes us say 'aah' (video)
No, she's not in a state of shock, nor is she hunting for plankton -- she's simply waiting for the dentist to polish her pearly whites, just like any other conscientious robot. Known as the Showa Hanako 2, this humanoid was originally developed last year as a tool for dentists looking to practice new procedures. Now, engineers at Japan's Showa University have updated their dental denizen, adding a motorized head and replacing her PVC skin with a more realistic silicon coating. She also boasts speech recognition capabilities and can execute freakishly natural movements, including blinking, sneezing, coughing and, under more unsavory circumstances, even choking. See her in action for yourself, after the break.
Researchers hope tooth regeneration gel will reduce the need for fillings
We may still not have jetpacks or flying cars, but it looks like the 21st century might be about to get a bit more futuristic. As Discovery News reports, a study published in the ACS Nano journal is offering some fairly convincing evidence that a new type of hormone gel could potentially regenerate teeth and eliminate the need for fillings in at least some cases. According to the French scientists behind it, the gel has already managed to make cavities in mice "disappear" after only a month, and the peptide used in the gel, MSH, has also previously been shown to encourage bone regeneration. Of course, it will be a little while yet before your dentist puts down the drill -- the researchers say there still needs to be "several years" of clinical trials, and note that it likely won't replace fillings altogether (or prevent them).
Sirona dental digitizer makes cavities look better than ever
We may not all be getting dental examinations at home just yet, but we can at least be thankful that companies like Sirona are doing their best to speed up our visits to the dentist and, frankly, make them a little more awesome. Their latest device is the CEREC AC, which makes use of the so-called Bluecam pictured above to capture images of "near inaccessible areas with the utmost precision." That's apparently made possible in part thanks to its use of a blue LED that illuminates the area, and some built-in shake detection and automatic image capturing software that ensures that just the right images are captured. The main CEREC AC unit comes into the picture to work some CAD/CAM magic on those images and, as you can see after the break, it seems more than ready to handle a few late night games of Marble Madness should the urge arise.[Via Medgadget]
Cellphones are dangerous/not dangerous: leaky fillings edition
We're not even going to pretend we fully grasp what's going on here, but the long and short of Shiraz University of Medical Sciences' latest findings are that cellphones can trigger the release of mercury from one's fillings. Yes, seriously. The study asserts that out of 14 test subjects with fillings, those who used mobile phones had a statistically significant increase of mercury from urine tests than those who refrained from yapping. The science behind all of this is far beyond our IQ levels, but we're a little freaked out/not freaked out, regardless.[Via textually]
Nine in ten dentists recommend carving up that iPhone dock your own dang self
But not this guy. Seriously, he's gonna stick drill that in somebody's mouth after this? Not ours, no thank you. Tipster Adam Marcus wanted to make some room for his iPhone 3G in his old iPhone dock, and got a teeth fixin' out of the whole deal, but we'd say somebody should call the dentist police on the both of them.
