Microrobots can brush and floss teeth in a proof-of-concept study • Hacker News Board

Re: Microrobots can brush and floss teeth in a proof-of-concept study

#201

Post by f6v » Thu, Jul 07, 2022, 6:44 AM UTC

Gigachad wrote: post #171

f6v wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you seen how much it costs to get crowns or implants? There’s zero incentive for innovation, people keep bringing their money.

You could say this about almost every job. I like to think that the entire population isn't trying to actively sabotage things to generate more work. I certainly don't go seeding bugs or complex situations in to software to create more demand for my job.

It’s not about sabotage. Just that there’s no incentive to invent a new generation of dental hygiene products.

Re: Microrobots can brush and floss teeth in a proof-of-concept study

#202

Post by Retric » Thu, Jul 07, 2022, 6:47 AM UTC

arrosenberg wrote: post #197

Retric wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s the same relationship: We might call it the same species, but the relevant chararistic changed is detrimental to a [human] host but beneficial to the [bacteria] parasite. We might call it the same species, but the relevant chararistic changed is detrimental to a [city] host but beneficial to the [drug dealer] parasite. Consider if you removed all the wings on misquotes in a city. That would be useful on day 1, b…

> Consider if you removed all the wings on misquotes in a city. That's not an accurate analogy for biofilms. Even if it was, I noted below that the mechanical action of brushing your teeth annihilates any biofilm (i.e. plaque) that has built up. That being the case, how do you explain the fact that people who brush their teeth are not suffering from infection from advantageous disease? If you wipe out your gut flora,…

I think you may have confused me with the other poster: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32007812

Anyway brushing your teeth doesn't sterilize your mouth or even disrupt your mouth flora that much.

But brushing and flossing does do many things. It helps your spit/toothpaste to remineralize your teeth repairing microscopic damage, removes leftover buts of food, and generally makes your mouth noticeably less hospitable to bacteria alongside reducing biofilms.

As soon as you stop bushing things start getting worse, but that's why it's a daily activity.

Re: Microrobots can brush and floss teeth in a proof-of-concept study

#203

Post by f6v » Thu, Jul 07, 2022, 6:47 AM UTC

Forgeties79 wrote: post #36

f6v wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you seen how much it costs to get crowns or implants? There’s zero incentive for innovation, people keep bringing their money.

I would like to think that most dentists like their patients to have healthy, cared for teeth and that they play in important role in it. I would not like to think that most of them actually work to our detriment so that they can do more expensive, painful procedures on our mouths and teeth. That’s a pretty cynical outlook I’d need to see evidence for.

You’d be surprised but dentists care about making money to provide for the family. Just as most of us who work. They don’t sabotage anything, there’s no master plan. They just come in, see your cavity, make a 300$ filling or 1000$ crown. Rinse and repeat. Then they clock out and go home.

So who’s actually going to actively work on creating new groundbreaking dental products? What would the incentive be?

Re: Microrobots can brush and floss teeth in a proof-of-concept study

#204

Post by f6v » Thu, Jul 07, 2022, 6:51 AM UTC

Guest9081239812 wrote: post #76

stjohnswarts wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a dentist for several years and everything was normal just clean and go. A new hygenist shows up and suddently "You have severe plaque below the gum line we need to do a deep cleaning (root scaling/planing)" so they do that and it's almost $500, next time rolls around and she says it again and dentist concurs. I had been brushing and flossing diligently (probably too much) since the last time and just looking a…

Both myself and my partner had similar experiences at the dentist. They found work that needed to be done, we got second opinions, and were told something completely different. I stopped trusting dentists since then. If I can feel or see a problem (in the mirror or in xrays), then sure, I'll get it fixed. But, if my teeth feel perfectly fine, I'm not going to rush into getting them drilled out.

I had four different opinions in the last two years:

- It gets inflamed because other teeth keep pushing on the gums. You need to get them pulled

- I don’t know why, let’s just apply antibiotics for the 10th time

- It’s a cavity, let’s wait till it grows

- Use these tiny between-teeth brushes for your gums

The last one actually helped.

Re: Microrobots can brush and floss teeth in a proof-of-concept study

#205

Post by f6v » Thu, Jul 07, 2022, 6:53 AM UTC

david_l_lin wrote: post #56

Forgeties79 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would like to think that most dentists like their patients to have healthy, cared for teeth and that they play in important role in it. I would not like to think that most of them actually work to our detriment so that they can do more expensive, painful procedures on our mouths and teeth. That’s a pretty cynical outlook I’d need to see evidence for.

All you need to do is visit the dentistry reddit sub and look at threads like this: https://www.reddit.com/r/Dentistry/comments/vnv25a/how_is_he... . They all operate on "production" because billing is top priority.

No incentive to innovate is very different from sabotaging. I’m sorry you see it this way.

Re: Microrobots can brush and floss teeth in a proof-of-concept study

#206

Post by trhway » Thu, Jul 07, 2022, 7:02 AM UTC

Retric wrote: post #149

klipt wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A keto diet without sugar or starch should prevent most plaque formation, shouldn't it?

No, a balanced keto diet might be moderately better than a normal diet in terms of plaque, but even wild cats living on a nearly 100% meat diet still get dental plaque.

reminded - our cat was flossing his teeth using the corn broom that we had. He would press the broom with his paw and would byte a fiber close to the broom root and would move his head away so that the fiber would be flossing the teeth, and he would repeat it multiple times flossing different teeth. Still had perfect teeth at 13 when the cancer took him.

Re: Microrobots can brush and floss teeth in a proof-of-concept study

#207

Post by kwanbix » Thu, Jul 07, 2022, 7:28 AM UTC

LeonM wrote: post #119

kwanbix wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where do you get them for 90? I only see them at 190 in Germany. https://www.idealo.de/preisvergleich/ProductCategory/3233.ht...

You can get it here for 99 euro in the Netherlands: https://www.bol.com/nl/nl/p/silk-n-toothwave-elektrische-tan...

I see thanks. How do they compare with the much cheaper phillips sonicare toothbrushes is the question.

Re: Microrobots can brush and floss teeth in a proof-of-concept study

#208

Post by d1sxeyes » Thu, Jul 07, 2022, 7:59 AM UTC

jachee wrote: post #90

LeonM wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looks like that pricing has not been updated for a while. I paid something like 200 euros, that was about a year ago. Most online retailers in my country now list them for less than 100 euros.

Weird. In Dutch ( https://silkn.nl/toothwave-black ) it’s €119. In English (both EU and GB), French, Spanish, and German ( e.g. https://silkn.eu/toothwave-black ) it’s €249.

Huh, interesting!

Re: Microrobots can brush and floss teeth in a proof-of-concept study

#209

Post by matsemann » Thu, Jul 07, 2022, 8:33 AM UTC

skyyler wrote: post #168

matsemann wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't be an ass, don't imply my breath smells. Be better than that.

If you don't floss, I can promise you that your breath smells. Maybe not bad, but people notice it if you're in close quarters.

Have you done a scientific review, or just talking out of your ass?

Re: Microrobots can brush and floss teeth in a proof-of-concept study

#210

Post by skyyler » Thu, Jul 07, 2022, 12:43 PM UTC

matsemann wrote: post #209

skyyler wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't floss, I can promise you that your breath smells. Maybe not bad, but people notice it if you're in close quarters.

Have you done a scientific review, or just talking out of your ass?

You need a scientific study to know that rotting food smells bad?

Sure:

> Our study confirmed that use of dental floss was associated with lower odds of having oral malodor after controlling for other factors. This agrees with the findings reported recently by AlSadhan [15] who demonstrated statistically significant relationship between self-reported halitosis and use of dental floss. Faveri et al.[32] evaluated the effect of interdental flossing on oral malodor and found that there was a significantly lower concentration of sulfur compounds after using dental floss.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5727733/