科学美国人60秒 SSS 2014-2-26

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I'm guessing you brush twice a day, or aspire¹ to. Our ancestors were a little less diligent². But that's a good thing for scientists, because ancient placode teeth are like time capsules, preserving early evidence of cavities or even plaque³ DNA⁴. Now researchers have turned to a-thousand-year-old teeth from a convict cemetery⁵ outside Frankfurt Germany, and they cleaned it up much like your dentist does.

 

 

We use the same dental tools, and we collect the calculus⁶ from the teeth.

 

 

That's molecular⁷ anthropologist⁸ Christina Warner of the University of Oklahoma. Inside that calculous plaque, she and her colleagues found tiny bits of pork, bread wheat and cabbage, identified by their DNA. Along with the bugs⁹ behind strap¹⁰ through, bacterial¹¹ meningitis and oil string of Gonorrhea. And don't be too quick to judge. 

 

 

Nearly all of us still have Gonorrhea at our mouth.

 

 

There study is in the journal Nature Genetics. Some of those bugs are antibiotic¹² resistant¹³ too, because long before penicillin¹⁴, some microbes produce natural antibiotics¹⁵ to attack rivals. 

 

Your mouth is like a battlefield to bacteria. So, chew on that.

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