• Contrary to popular belief, George Washington's famous dentures were not made from wood. His four pairs of custom choppers were crafted from gold, ivory, lead, and a mixture of human, donkey, and hippopotamus teeth.
• The cotton candy making machine that made widely consumed cotton candy possible was co-invented by a dentist. Before it was cotton candy, the fluffy confection was called "fairy floss".
• The earliest known dentist was Hesi-ren, an Egyptian "doctor of the tooth" who lived around 3000 B.C.
• Cavities in teeth have been filled since the earliest of times with a variety of different materials, including gum, stone chips, and even turpentine resin.
• The lifespan of a taste bud is about 10 days.
• The five known tastes detected by taste buds are: bitter, sour, salty, sweet, and umami. Umami was identified in 1908 by a Japanese research and the chemical responsible for it is monosodium glutamate.
• 60% of people don't known that a sore jaw, when combined with chest pain, can signal a heart attack - especially in women.
• Every year, kids in North America spend close to half a billion dollars on chewing gum.
• The most valuable tooth belonged to Sir Isaac Newton. In 1816, one of his teeth
was sold in London for $3,633.00, or in today's terms, $35,700.00. The tooth was
set in a ring.
• Americans spent $25 billion on candy in 2010. That is more than the gross national
products of Lithuania, Costa Rica, and Mozambique combined.
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