Color Preference in the Insane, Can Consumers Recognize the Taste of their Favorite Beer?, Effect of Audience Boredom on the Power Hungry, You Never Sleep Alone, Improbable Medical Review, Extracting the Wrong Tooth, and Telephones for Animals. In episode #206, Marc Abrahams shows some unfamiliar research studies to Jean Berko Gleason, Chris Cotsapas, Maggie Lettvin, […]
Tag: tooth
The benefits, to non-scientists, of DNA research: Lennon’s Tooth
Molecular biology research, once seen as exotic, now showers benefits on the population at large. The May 29, 2018 issue of The Irish Sun brings news of the newest benefit: HERE COMES THE SON Dentist who owns John Lennon’s tooth will use DNA test to find Beatle’s potential love children in bid to claim slice of […]
To Push a Tooth
Only a few documented experiments have measured the result of pushing a single tooth at either of two positions along the tooth, for purposes of understanding the brain. Here is one such study: “Forces, movements and reflexes produced by pushing human teeth,” Brendan J.J. Scott [pictured here], Andrew G. Mason and Samuel W. Cadden, Experimental […]
Tooth-clicking for better Internet browsing?
Tooth-clicking is in its infancy as a means of telling a computer what to do, and when to do it. The hope is that, in a symphony-of-body-parts approach, clicking your teeth will become one of the almost-natural ways you will interact with computing devices…. —so begins another Improbable Innovation nugget, which appears in its entirety on BetaBoston.
The quest for the elusive tooth worm(s)
The Chirurgeon’s Apprentice blog discusses “the battle of the tooth worm“: This is a depiction of the infamous tooth worm believed by many people in the past to bore holes in human teeth and cause toothaches….Tooth worms have a long history, first appearing in a Sumerian text around 5,000 BC. References to tooth worms […]
The String and the Doorknob
If you are a dentist, or have ever met one, hark back with us to the days of yesteryear, as recounted in this treatise: “The String and the Doorknob: Profile of a Popular Approach to Dental Extraction,” Eric K. Curtis, Journal of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, vol. 48, 1990, pp. 1084-1092. In the writeup, details […]
Looking: A Gift Tooth in the Ear
The BMJ has again given its cheeriest gift to the world — the annual Christmas issue packed with improbable medical specimens. Here’s one of this year’s most toothsome reports: “The Tooth Fairy and Malpractice,” Sian Ludman [pictured here], Hamid Daya, Polly S Richards and Adam Fox, BMJ, 2012; 345. The authors write: “The family spoke of […]
Music That Overwhelms Tooth Pain, They Say
Begin playing the soothing music video, below. Listen to it as you read this item from the Bibliolore blog: A 28-year-old woman urgently needed a tooth extraction, and local anesthesia was not an option. The patient was offered all of the other anesthetizing options, but she chose music instead. A recording of a Rām dhun […]
Medical Research Review: Tooth-in-foot & Surfer-Dude Ratio
The Medical Research Review column from the Nov/Dec 2011 issue (vol. 17, no. 6) of the Annals of Improbable Research is online. It gives details of two compelling medical studies, which are pithily expressed in the headlines “How the Tooth Got in the Foot” and “Relative Finger Lengths in Superior Surfer Dudes”. Download a high-res […]
Lee Loveless: Vampire video for tooth care
The perhaps misleadingly-named Lee Loveless [pictured here] works for the UK’s National Health Service [NHS) in the city of Portsmouth. Loveless appears, in words only, in a BBC news report: Vampire video aims to help improve Portsmouth’s teeth A viral vampire video is at the centre of a new dental health campaign in Portsmouth. Inspired […]