 the whole toof. Thursday, February 22, 2007 MISSING! Two Front Teeth Last Seen Under A Pillow! Is there anything better that the rite of passage of loosing them two front chicklets? And with any rite there is always some zany folklore that accompanies it..hence the tooth fairy and the cash exchange. But stranger to me than the idea that a fairy comes and gets your teeth to put in her tooth museum is the background of the idea that your teeth need to be specially disposed of instead of just pitched like any other useless trash...according to the folks at The Straight Dope (a superb web resource of super fun facts that you should force on children when they have homework projects) back when witches were believed to use pieces of your body, such as hair and fingernail clippings, to direct magic and curses at you, proper disposal of teeth was a serious business. The process differed by culture, from throwing the tooth up to the sun or over the roof of your house, to feeding them to an animal (usually a mouse). The tooth could be buried, hidden, swallowed, or burned (sometimes after salting). It was also thought that if an animal eats a lost baby tooth, the new teeth coming in will supposedly resemble that animal's--such as a dog's tooth or pig's tooth. Letting the tooth be eaten by mice or rats will ensure that the child grows strong, sharp teeth (such folk rituals were recorded as late as 1929). And you thought flushing them down the toilet after exchanging them for a quarter under the pillow was sufficient!? But the next time you get ready to flush one...think on this...Sontango Shi of the National Institute of Dental Health (Bethesda, Md.) announced the discovery, in his own daughter's tooth (which was being washed at the time for collection by the Tooth Fairy), of a pulpy mass of living tissue which, upon microscopic examination, proved to contain juvenile stem cells. Stem cells, if you've missed any part of the ongoing controversy of this things are the blank or unprogrammed cells that renew our bodies' tissues. In their embryonic form, stem cells can become anything—literally any cell type found anywhere in the body. Simply injecting them into the site of a heart or brain injury is often sufficient to promote the growth of new tissue which would otherwise be impossible. Their therapeutic potential—and dollar value—is obviously, enormous. Sadly, though, only one source is known right now for embryonic human stem cells, and that's actual human embryos. I don't have to remind you what the controversy is I know, but for the hell of it, it is all about abortion, playing god, myth, misinformation, yadda, yadda, jesus and the lord and the bible and the flag and gay marriage and fetuses and politics and stupidity...where was I? So instead, scientists have been focusing on a different sort of stem cell found in the bone marrow of adults, the stromal cell. Unfortunately, these cells are not totipotent—they can differentiate into cardiac tissue, bone liver, and fat cells, but they can't change into anything we want them to be. They also grow more sluggishly than embryonic cells do, and they can't divide as many times. But here is where it gets interesting...these juvenile dental stem cells (now known as SHED cells, or Stem cells from Human Exfoliated Deciduous teeth) are found in all baby teeth, of which every human sheds exactly 20 before entering adulthood. And these SHED cells proliferate much faster than stromal cells, and are capable of producing fat and bone cells as well as additional tissue types, including nerves. So they could potentially be used to treat brain diseases like Parkinson's and Alzheimer's, and crippling bone problems like osteoporosis or very serious compound fractures. And if you have fallen asleep during my medical hoohaa, they could be used for stuff like breast enlargement as well. BOOBIES! Gives new meaning to the term 'milk teeth' now don't it. SMILE, it's Thursday. smiling a mile in the snow. Diana (Shakey's clone). Ilford HP5+ how about them 2007 Photobloggie nominations? first of all i'd like to thank... donate. send a kid to time out! Comment (11) | Permalink |
