No more fillings? Gel regenerates teeth

Dentists could soon hang up their drills. A new peptide, embedded in a soft gel or a thin, flexible film and placed next to a cavity, encourages cells inside teeth to regenerate in about a month, according to a new study in the journal ACS Nano. This technology is the first of its kind.

The new gel or thin film could eliminate the need to fill painful cavities or drill deep into the root canal of an infected tooth.

"It's not like toothpaste," which prevent cavities, said Nadia Benkirane-Jessel, a scientist at the Institut National de la Sante et de la Recherche Medicale and a co-author of a recent paper. "Here we are really trying to control cavities (after they develop)."

Drilling teeth and filling them is safe and effective. Dentists fill millions of cavities each year across the United States. However, though dentists numb the tooth, many patients still rue the sound of that drill.
The new research could make a trip to the dentist's office more pleasant, said Berkirane-Jessel. Instead of a drill, a quick dab of gel or a thin film against an infected tooth could heal teeth from within.

Cavities are bacteria and pus-filled holes on or in teeth which can lead to discomfort, pain and even tooth loss. When people eat acidic foods, consume sugary snacks or simply don't maintain proper oral hygiene, bacteria begin to eat away at the protective enamel and other minerals inside teeth.
The causes of cavities are varied. But for most cavities, the treatment is the same: drilling into a tooth, removing the decay and filling in the hole to prevent further damage.

The gel or thin film contains a peptide known as MSH, or melanocyte-stimulating hormone. Previous experiments, reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, showed that MSH encourages bone regeneration.

Bone and teeth are fairly similar, so the French scientists reasoned that if the MSH were applied to teeth, it should help healing as well.

To test their theory, the French scientists applied either a film or gel, both of which contained MSH, to cavity-filled mice teeth. After about one month, the cavities had disappeared, said Benkirane-Jesse.

Benkirane-Jessel cautions that the MSH-containing films or gels only treat cavities; they don't prevent them. People will still need to brush, floss and use mouthwash to help prevent cavities from forming in the first place.

Treating cavities without drilling "would have its advantages," said Hom-Lay Wang, a dentist at the University of Michigan. Cavities and drilling can destroy the nerves and blood vessels inside a tooth, making it more brittle and likely to fracture. Regenerating a tooth could help avoid crowns after a cavity has been filled.
That said, regenerating a tooth from within would only be useful in a relatively small number of cases. Most cavities would still need to be drilled and filled.

In the meantime, patients can't slacken their oral hygiene either. Numerous clinical trials over several years will have to be completed before the MSH-containing gels or films are available to treat cavities in humans.

 http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37978810/ns/health-oral_health/

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China hosts first Robot Olympics

The World’s first International Humanoid Robots Olympic Games kicked off on June 21, in China’s Harbin’s Institute of Technology.

Two years after hosting a memorable edition of the human Olympic Games, China becomes the first country to host an Olympics dedicated to humanoid robots. Nineteen teams, from China, United States, Japan, South Korea or Germany have brought their best robots to compete in this historic three-day event.

To enter the competition, robots had to be less than 60 cm long, and have a human shape, with a head, two arms and two legs. Just like in the real Olympic Games, the sporty robots had to compete in multiple challenges, 24 to be exact, ranging from boxing, to weight-lifting, dancing, or sprint. But there are also some unusual domestic events, like cleaning or medical care.

The sprinting contest took place on the first day, with the winner running a distance of five meters in 20 seconds flat. Not bad for a small robot, I think. Check out the video at the bottom, to see these little guys sweating silicone at the Robot Olympic Games.

Source <www.odditycentral.com>

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How to hold your new iPhone 4

Apple has released official advice for iPhone 4 owners to overcome the problem of the device losing signal when held by the lower left corner.

Steve Jobs responded to a query about the problem from one owner by saying: "Just avoid holding it in that way."

Except that it seems that Apple themselves have got it wrong and have gotten to grips with how to hold the new phone.

Well it seems that while us mere mortals will have to settle for buying a rubber outer casing in order to ensure that we can continue to have a reasonable signal, one Intergalactic user has figured it out....I wonder what price plan he has got?

Source <www.geeksaresexy.com>

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Make your own micro SIM

We've finally found ourselves a solid, confirmed shot of a micro SIM in the wild, thanks to an FCC filing from Lok8u -- the company that just inked a deal with T-Mobile -- that shows the innards of its GPS watch torn asunder. Over on the right there is one of the micro SIMs in question, and as you can clearly make out, the contact pad is identical to the one you'd find on a traditional SIM.

In other words, if you were really hard up to get that iPad or iPhone up and running on a network that isn't providing micros, you could probably shoehorn a traditional SIM in there with a little elbow grease and handiwork, which happily matches up with information we've been hearing from several contacts of ours. Who knew Lok8u would be so important in this investigative process?

Update: The ETSI has also confirmed to CNET UK that micro SIMs are electrically identical to their older counterparts, so that's a promising sign, and Boy Genius tells us that he used to shave down SIMs to micro SIM size back in the day for dual SIM adapters -- in other words, you're probably not going to damage the chip by trimming (and even if you do, it's a simple replacement from your carrier).

Source <www.engadget.com>

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Rome gets hotel made from rubbish

Environmental campaigners have built a temporary hotel largely from rubbish in the Italian capital, Rome, to raise awareness of European beach pollution.

Save the Beach Hotel, taking guests for four days only, is adorned with debris from the world's beaches.

Its five rooms and reception are lined with 12 tonnes of rubbish, including toys, cans, car exhaust pipes.

Danish supermodel Helena Christensen, who has stayed at the hotel, said it was a striking work of art.

"When you're inside the house, there are walls as there would be in a normal house, but they are all made of inorganic waste," Ms Christensen, who is also an environmental campaigner, told the BBC.
A man looks out from a bedroom at Save the Beach hotel in Rome, 4 June 2010 The hotel will be open to guests until 7 June

"And then the outside... is completely covered in everything that we throw on beaches.

"And so you can basically just go around the house, and look at a lot of very personal objects, and some of them make you really wonder what made a human being throw this away on a beach."

The hotel, which stands beside the 2nd Century Castel Sant'Angelo on the banks of the Tiber, was created by German artist HA Schult.

"We are in the trash time," he was quoted as telling AFP news agency.

"We produce trash and we will be trash. So this hotel is the mirror of the situation.

"We have to change the world, before the world changes us."

Would-be guests at the hotel will have to hurry to book a room: it is open from 3-7 June, and bookings may be hard to come by on 5 June, which marks World Environment Day.

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World's Biggest Burger

Source <www.telegraph.co.uk>

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The Earth and Moon formed later than previously thought

The Earth and Moon were created as the result of a giant collision between two planets the size of Mars and Venus. Until now it was thought to have happened when the solar system was 30 million years old or approx. 4,537 million years ago. But new research from the Niels Bohr Institute shows that the Earth and Moon must have formed much later – perhaps up to 150 million years after the formation of the solar system. The research results have been published in the scientific journal, Earth and Planetary Science Letters.

"We have determined the ages of the Earth and the Moon using tungsten isotopes, which can reveal whether the iron cores and their stone surfaces have been mixed together during the collision”, explains Tais W. Dahl, who did the research as his thesis project in geophysics at the Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen in collaboration with professor David J. Stevenson from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech).

Turbulent collisions



The planets in the solar system were created by collisions between small dwarf planets orbiting the newborn sun. In the collisions the small planets melted together and formed larger and larger planets. The Earth and Moon are the result of a gigantic collision between two planets the size of Mars and Venus. The two planets collided at a time when both had a core of metal (iron) and a surrounding mantle of silicates (rock). But when did it happen and how did it happen? The collision took place in less than 24 hours and the temperature of the Earth was so high (7000º C), that both rock and metal must have melted in the turbulent collision. But were the stone mass and iron mass also mixed together?

Until recently it was believed that the rock and iron mixed completely during the planet formation and so the conclusion was that the Moon was formed when the solar system was 30 million years old or approximately 4,537 million years ago. But new research shows something completely different.

Dating with radioactive elements

The age of the Earth and Moon can be dated by examining the presence of certain elements in the Earth’s mantle. Hafnium-182 is a radioactive substance, which decays and is converted into the isotope tungsten-182. The two elements have markedly different chemical properties and while the tungsten isotopes prefer to bond with metal, hafnium prefers to bond to silicates, i.e. rock.

It takes 50-60 million years for all hafnium to decay and be converted into tungsten, and during the Moon forming collision nearly all the metal sank into the Earth’s core. But did all the tungsten go into the core?

"We have studied to what degree metal and rock mix together during the planet forming collisions. Using dynamic model calculations of the turbulent mixing of the liquid rock and iron masses we have found that tungsten isotopes from the Earth’s early formation remain in the rocky mantle”, explains Tais W. Dahl, Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen.

The new studies imply that the moon forming collision occurred after all of the hafnium had decayed completely into tungsten.

"Our results show that metal core and rock are unable to emulsify in these collisions between planets that are greater than 10 kilometres in diameter and therefore that most of the Earth’s iron core (80-99 %) did not remove tungsten from the rocky material in the mantle during formation", explains Tais W. Dahl.

The result of the research means that the Earth and the Moon must have been formed much later than previously thought – that is to say not 30 million years after the formation of the solar system 4,567 million years ago but perhaps up to 150 million years after the formation of the solar system.

Source <http://insciences.org>

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