In Case You Were Curious This Is Why Sharks Don’t Get Cavities
I am pretty sure that this kind of knowledge isn’t all that high up on most people’s list of things that they want to know but since I stumbled across this little tidbit I though I’d share it with you.
It seems that sharks don’t get cavities or have any other dental problems due to the fact that their teeth contain the main ingredient when it comes to fighting cavities – they contain fluoride.
So it would seem that along with having the perfectly designed mouth and teeth for tearing flesh from bone they also have a built in protection system for keeping those deadly teeth all pearly white. This is according to a study done by Professor Matthais Epple at the University of Duisburg-Essen that was recently published in the Journal of Structural Biology.
“In order to make teeth more acid resistant, toothpaste often contains fluoride,” Epple, a professor of inorganic chemistry at the University of Duisburg-Essen, told Discovery News. “In the surface of human teeth after brushing, a small amount — much less than 1 percent — of hydroxide is exchanged by fluoride.”
“In contrast,” he added, “(the surface of) shark teeth contains 100 percent fluoride. In principle, sharks should not suffer from caries. As they live in water and as they change their teeth regularly, dental protection should not be a problem for sharks.”
via Discovery
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About the Author
Steven Hodson Steven has been around the tech world long enough to see most of the stuff we think of cool happen before which leads to a certain bit of cynicism that has contributed to him being known as the cranky old fart of the Internet. Besides sharing some of the goodness that he finds with you here at 42x you can also find him curating some digital goodness at Winextra (tech type stuff) and Rotten Gumdrops (for your daily dose of WTF).
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