The dark sky fractures with a thunderous might. Chris and Jane melt into the darkness and slink behind an abandoned cafe. They hear nothing but distant clicking beneath each thunderous bellow ahead. Jane sobs. Chris gives her a warm embrace. He speaks with a vague whisper, “We will be OK, honey. Let’s just stick to the plan.” Against her will, she let’s out a slightly louder sob, then gasps at what she just did. The chattering stops. Her heart pounds. Lightning strikes, and they see it: the abomination had no visible face, just teeth. Decayed teeth against rotting skin. It faces their direction before letting out a terrifying hiss as it dashes towards them, its head split open like a Venus fly trap, revealing a terrifying set of venomous fangs. Chris forcefully grabs her arm, and they run in a panic as several more abominations begin to chase after them. One foot in front of the other. Scan for a clear path. Watch out for obstacles. Find somewhere out of sight, and hide. Be as quiet as possible. Just like the training manual said. Chris desperately looks ahead as his breathing turns shallow; then, his stomach sinks as they come to a chain link fence overlooking a sea of these monsters choking the streets. They were trapped on both sides, and he had to think fast. He spots an open door, and they run for it. He slams it shut, and they begin looking for a hiding place. It appeared to be a break room of sorts; they began making their way past dozens of upturned tables and chairs, finding purchase in a small janitorial closet. “It’s going to be alright, sweetheart. Remember what the CDC said, we need to lie low and wait. They only respond to noise.” She didn’t respond. Quietly, they sit, waiting to be passed over. Strange, erratic breathing fills the closet, and Chris whispers. “Jane, are you okay?” chattering. In a panic, he turns and sees that her face is now deformed with hundreds of teeth. Her head splits open, and with a horrific roar, she lunges at him, and things go black.
“It appears the drug may be too effective. The test patients have had to start chewing on things to keep their teeth from growing through their own skull.”
Ok but how will they ensure the right teeth get regrown? Imagine waking up to find that your impacted wisdom teeth that you had removed a decade ago had come back
May your cultivated dentin be strong and plentiful.
As a side note, I used to have really bad oral hygiene, which is what led me to where I am now. I have learned my lessons, and done what I can to appease the Dental Care professionals… So far it seems to be working… But I don’t have the many thousands of dollars to burn on getting crowns/implants/whatever I need to complete the illusion of me having all my mouth bones.
So I swear, if I get a new set, they will be cared for with the utmost of diligence.
The one I got was one of the “Sonic” ones or whatever, that vibrates really quickly. It just didn’t do it for me. It always felt like more hassle than it was worth because it’s so different than a regular toothbrush.
I also had one that was battery powered, not rechargeable or anything, so I had to keep alkaline batteries around…
Oh, yea, the vibrating ones don’t work and the ones with batteries are too much bullshit trouble.
I don’t know about easier, because the electric toothbrush does all of the work, but It’s comfortable enough to just smash a normal toothbrush around your mouth, and far, far less effective at cleaning your teeth.
A manual toothbrush moving fast can brush 600 times a minute; electric toothbrushes brush almost 50,000 times per minute because the brush head is oscillating.
I wrote this to someone else, but after brushing and flossing three times a day or more for years with zero progress in avoiding new cavities every few months, I finally tried an electric toothbrush at the behest of a dentist I trusted and I have had basically no cavities and no root canals or major work done since switching to the electric toothbrush years ago now
It was like night and day how rapidly and comprehensively my oral health improved after beginning to use the electric toothbrush.
And I’ve used a bunch of different ones at this point, the brand doesn’t matter, get whatever one is on sale for 50 bucks with some extra brush heads.
It’s the extra revolutions, it’s literally like 10 extra brushes for every second you’re brushing your teeth.
Is that what happened to Musk, Trump, Putin, etc.? They got decanted from the tubes too soon? I mean, that makes sense, but why not just let it wither on the vine at that point? Shareholder pressure? Curious.
Well, I was quoting RFC 1925, the twelve networking truths…
(2) No matter how hard you push and no matter what the priority, you can’t increase the speed of light.
(2a) (corollary). No matter how hard you try, you can’t make a baby in much less than 9 months. Trying to speed this up might make it slower, but it won’t make it happen any quicker.
“Spicy” isn’t a taste, it’s just a mildly painful chemical irritation. Spicy substances can hurt many sensitive body parts, including the mouth, nose, eyes, anus, and genitals. It’s nothing to do with tastebuds, more to do with thin unprotected membranes in your body being sensitive to chemicals such as capsaicin or allyl isothiocyanate.
I do wish that media coverage would stop calling it a regrowth drug. It might get there eventually, but that’s not what it is, and it causes issues with people misunderstanding medical science.
What is it? I guess the distinction is between regrowth and regeneration. I’ll admit regrowth sounded great, because my four front teeth have been shaved down to posts for veneers because of an unfortunate incident with a hockey puck. Sounds like this isn’t for me.
The medicine itself deactivates the uterine sensitization-associated gene-1 (USAG-1) protein, which suppresses tooth growth. As we reported in 2023, blocking USAG-1’s interaction with other proteins encourages bone morphogenetic protein (BMP) signaling, which triggers new bone to generate. In the ferret study, the drug resulted in the growth of a new tooth (fourth from left), and it also strengthened bone in the existing set. It resulted in new teeth emerging in the mouths of mice and ferrets, species that share close to the same USAG-1 properties as humans.
Am I missing something? It seems like it prompts the body to actually grow new teeth, though I’ll admit I am way out of my wheelhouse here.
It’s more about the extremely early stages of things. It will be years before it gets to the point it’s being used on people that have lost teeth. Right now, it’s for people only with congenital lack of teeth.
I’m not saying the drug isn’t going there eventually, it likely will. But it’s not going to be even tested for other uses for something like two more years (iirc, I’m pulling this from memory over the last year or so that the drug has been reported on) from now, and even that assumes the current testing is successful.
It’s an incredibly promising thing that will help a lot of people if it’s safe and effective, not just the current targeted population.
I’m actually hyped for this to work out. My working life was partially with geriatric patients. The quality of life loss that goes along with tooth loss is horrible. Then there’s the loss of bone density in the jaw after losing the teeth.
My peeve is with the reporting putting the cart before the horse. Bad medical reporting causes problems even more than bad science reporting in general. Report what is, especially in headlines, then cover what might be as a secondary note. Right now, regrowing teeth is not proven capability of the drug for humans. The testing for growing teeth where they’ve never been hasn’t even finished yet.
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