Teeth News and Research

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Abundance of Oral Microbes Is Strongly Influenced by Genetics

No matter how much they brush their teeth, some people still get more cavities than others, in part because of differences in genetics and the make-up of the microbes in their mouths.

29 Jan 2026

Prehistoric Genome Pushes Back Origins of Treponemal Diseases in the Americas

Scientists have recovered a genome of Treponema pallidum – the bacterium whose subspecies today are responsible for four treponemal diseases, including syphilis – from 5,500-year-old human remains in Sabana de Bogotá, Colombia.

24 Jan 2026

Trojan Horse Drug Works in Combination With Copper to Kill Bacteria

A research team at the University of Arizona College of Medicine – Tucson is developing a drug that works in combination with copper to kill bacteria, including those that cause MRSA, a type of staph infection that is resistant to usual treatments.

24 Jan 2026

Scientists Discover Tug-of-War Mechanism Driving Bacteria Flagella Direction Switching

Scientists have uncovered a new explanation for how swimming bacteria change direction, providing fresh insight into one of biology's most intensively studied molecular machines.

12 Jan 2026

Lab-Grown Human “Blood Factory” Advances Drug and Disease Testing

The “blood factory” of the human body is composed of specialized tissue that includes bone cells, blood vessels, nerves, and various other cell types.

19 Nov 2025

Targeting the Oral Metagenome to Boost Healthy Bacteria

Professor Zhang, a chemical and biomolecular engineering professor at UC Berkeley, is working to distinguish between the healthy and unhealthy bacteria in the human mouth. Her goal is to promote a probiotic oral microbiome by increasing the population of beneficial bacteria.

5 Sep 2025

How Newly Discovered Teeth In Ethiopia Are Changing The Human Origin Story

Discoveries in Ethiopia's Ledi-Geraru region highlight the coexistence of early Homo and Australopithecus, refining the narrative of human evolutionary history.

28 Aug 2025

Ancient DNA Reveals Origins of Human Pathogens and Zoonotic Diseases

A research team led by Eske Willerslev, professor at the University of Copenhagen and the University of Cambridge, has recovered ancient DNA from 214 known human pathogens in prehistoric humans from Eurasia.

10 Jul 2025

Researchers Use Biology to Convert Human Urine into a Valuable Product

Researchers from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), UC Irvine, and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), have used biology to convert human urine into a valuable product.

24 Jun 2025

Genetically Modified Yeast Turns Urine into Bone Material

Genetically modified yeast transforms human urine into hydroxyapatite, a valuable biomaterial for bone repair, enhancing wastewater treatment efficiency.

18 Jun 2025

Gene Loss and Gain Shaped the Evolution of Relapsing Fever Bacteria

Researchers at the Francis Crick Institute and UCL have analyzed ancient DNA from Borrelia recurrentis, a type of bacteria that causes relapsing fever, pinpointing when it evolved to spread through lice rather than ticks, and how it gained and lost genes in the process.

24 May 2025

Viking Skulls Show Evidence of Disease and Painful Conditions

Sweden's Viking Age population appears to have suffered from severe oral and maxillofacial disease, sinus and ear infections, osteoarthritis, and much more.

24 Feb 2025

Scientists Uncover Key Plant Metabolite to Block Biofilm Development

If your teeth have ever felt fuzzy after skipping a brushing, you've encountered biofilm-a slimy bacterial layer that clings to surfaces. In medical settings, biofilms make infections harder to treat when they form protective shields for bacteria on devices like catheters and implants.

13 Jan 2025