Test tube rat tooth could give hope to the world’s toothless, including Congress
Dan Brawner
February 20, 2007
A few years ago, I was visiting a friend and noticed strange scrapings on one of the cement blocks in the basement. To my horror, I was told they were made by rats trying to gnaw their way out. “With their teeth!?” I asked, wincing from the imaginary pain. Chomping an uncooked kernel of popcorn stops me in my tracks. How could a rat chew through concrete?
But it turns out rat teeth grow continuously and if rats didn’t chew on wood and other hard substances, they would eventually have tusks like saber-toothed tigers—which became extinct when their overgrown teeth ironically prevented them from eating.
This week, rat teeth became big news when scientists from Tokyo University grew a rat tooth from a single cell. In the February 19th issue of “Nature Methods”, the Japanese biologists report how a primitive cell, similar to a stem cell, was injected into a collagen structure where it developed into a tooth “bud” (ugh!). This was then transplanted into the cavity where the rat’s natural tooth had been extracted. The greenhouse tooth developed normally, formed a blood vessel and attached itself to the rodent’s jaw. (I wonder if the new tooth was that mustard yellow color rat teeth usually have.)
The test tube rat tooth technology might someday replace the need for dentures in humans – which would be a blessing considering that the acidic, sugary junk people eat is nearly as hard on teeth as chewing concrete.
One of the most recent food scares involves peanut butter, America’s favorite snack food, which was found to have been tainted with salmonella. Nearly 300 cases of contamination were discovered in 39 states. It would be a shame if this frightens choosey mothers from choosing peanut butter sandwiches for their kids. Of course, two tablespoons of peanut butter contains as much fat as a Burger King hamburger. But whereas peanut butter is about 50% fat, it is unsaturated and contains no trans fats. So peanut butter is pretty good for you, unless you’re allergic to it, in which case, it could throw your body into anaphylactic shock and all that business about “good cholesterol” would be purely academic.
Some good food news this week is that chocolate makes you smarter—which many of us have suspected for years. It seems cocoa increases blood flow to the brain. If this is true, my brain should be continuously hemorrhaging.
Watching the recent debate in Congress about funding the escalation of the Iraq war, I couldn’t help but think that the process would have been much improved if everyone involved had just eaten more chocolate. It would have sweetened the dispositions of some and increased blood flow to the brains of others, raising them to operational levels, perhaps for the first time.
And as to the legislation itself, it could have benefited from that new Japanese stem cell technology. After all, what’s the use of all that jawing, unless there’s some real teeth in it?
But it turns out rat teeth grow continuously and if rats didn’t chew on wood and other hard substances, they would eventually have tusks like saber-toothed tigers—which became extinct when their overgrown teeth ironically prevented them from eating.
This week, rat teeth became big news when scientists from Tokyo University grew a rat tooth from a single cell. In the February 19th issue of “Nature Methods”, the Japanese biologists report how a primitive cell, similar to a stem cell, was injected into a collagen structure where it developed into a tooth “bud” (ugh!). This was then transplanted into the cavity where the rat’s natural tooth had been extracted. The greenhouse tooth developed normally, formed a blood vessel and attached itself to the rodent’s jaw. (I wonder if the new tooth was that mustard yellow color rat teeth usually have.)
The test tube rat tooth technology might someday replace the need for dentures in humans – which would be a blessing considering that the acidic, sugary junk people eat is nearly as hard on teeth as chewing concrete.
One of the most recent food scares involves peanut butter, America’s favorite snack food, which was found to have been tainted with salmonella. Nearly 300 cases of contamination were discovered in 39 states. It would be a shame if this frightens choosey mothers from choosing peanut butter sandwiches for their kids. Of course, two tablespoons of peanut butter contains as much fat as a Burger King hamburger. But whereas peanut butter is about 50% fat, it is unsaturated and contains no trans fats. So peanut butter is pretty good for you, unless you’re allergic to it, in which case, it could throw your body into anaphylactic shock and all that business about “good cholesterol” would be purely academic.
Some good food news this week is that chocolate makes you smarter—which many of us have suspected for years. It seems cocoa increases blood flow to the brain. If this is true, my brain should be continuously hemorrhaging.
Watching the recent debate in Congress about funding the escalation of the Iraq war, I couldn’t help but think that the process would have been much improved if everyone involved had just eaten more chocolate. It would have sweetened the dispositions of some and increased blood flow to the brains of others, raising them to operational levels, perhaps for the first time.
And as to the legislation itself, it could have benefited from that new Japanese stem cell technology. After all, what’s the use of all that jawing, unless there’s some real teeth in it?
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