Over on xkcd (a great stick-figure webcomic) I find this nifty graphical representation of gravity wells:
It’s hard to read in a format which fits well on this page; the full-sized version is here.
Here’s something I’ve wondered about since I was a kid.
As we were taught in school (as part of a unit on oral hygiene), tooth decay is caused by a bacterium, streptococcus mutans. Said critter eats stray sugars in the mouth, and produces lactic acid as a waste by-product. The acid erodes tooth enamel.
Okay, fine… can’t we do something about this? It’s not like the bacteria are actually attacking the tooth; the damage is incidental. If we could introduce other bacteria which produced an alkaline, or create (either through genetic engineering or artificial selection) bacteria which produced less acidic wastes, wouldn’t this solve the problem?
Not surprisingly, the teachers didn’t have an answer. In fact, over the years, I found that none of the dentists I met had an answer, or seemed to have considered the problem, either.
Well, this January, there was an article in Popular Science on the genetic engineering of bacteria. Turns out a fellow named Jeffrey Hillman, at the University of Florida, was working on this way back when I was a kid asking all the odd questions. They cooked up some altered S. mutans that produces alcohol instead of acid, and which can displace the native variety. Problem solved.
They started trying to get permission for human trials in 1996. They got permission to perform a severely limited trial in 2004, which, due to the restrictions, took two years to arrange and which was limited to two volunteers. They got cleared for a somewhat larger trial last November.
So… we solved the problem of tooth decay twelve years ago, and the FDA is just getting around to permitting a real clinical trial?
This is like finding out that the kooks are right, and the oil companies really are suppressing engines which would let us drive a hundred miles on a bucket of water and some Gummi bears.
I’m not sure which bothers me more… that federal regulations slow this sort of progress to a snail’s pace, to everyone’s detriment, or that I don’t have a lot of spare money to invest in Oragenics, Hillman’s company. Assuming that their patents don’t run out before the FDA allows them to use this stuff, they should make out very well on this. Hopefully Hillman will be around a lot longer, to enjoy the fruits of his life’s work.
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