It’s been proven that people who have outside motivation are more successful at quitting harmful activities like smoking or overeating. But does being shamed by your doctor for your bad habits have the same effect? Researchers at the National Taiwan University in Taipei have created an implant that tracks your mouth movements and can differentiate between activities like eating, drinking, coughing, talking, or smoking.

Although it’s only in the very early stages of prototyping, the research team hope to eventually make a version that is wireless and small enough to fit inside a tiny brace on the tooth. The information could be accessed by your doctor or dentist, letting them call you out on your nasty habits like eating a box of Junior Mints, smoking a few cigarettes and then going to bed without brushing your teeth. Not that we’d know anything about that.

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A team of scientists has created yet another strange goo for dentists to put in your mouth. But this one is particularly beneficial for patients who fear the dreaded drill. It encourages cell growth in your teeth and could heal them from within.

French scientists have tested the gel on mice with cavities. According to Nadia Benkirane-Jessel, a scientist at the Institut National de la Sante et de la Recherche Medicale, the cavities healed in a month, and their teeth actually got stronger.

The goal of the gel is to put an end to drilling into teeth, a practice that can deaden nerve endings and harm blood cells. And it gives hope to those with infected or damaged teeth who have a strong dental phobia. We have a feeling it will be either bubblegum or grape flavored.

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You know that very first tickle in the back of your throat that tells you a cold is coming on? What if you could figure it out even sooner – as soon as the first bacteria took hold? A team at Princeton is developing tooth “tattoos” that could detect illness from the bacteria in your breath, starting before you even realize you’re getting sick.

The tattoos are wireless and powered by resonant coils so there’s no need for charging or batteries. They work with the wonder material graphene, which can grab each individual bacteria and make the sensors amazingly sensitive. Decorative tooth tattoos are already a fashion fad in many parts of the world, so maybe these medical sensors could be incorporated into the more decorative dental decals to create a product that’s functional and fun. But for those of us who choose to keep our tooth tattoos private, the graphene sensors can also be applied painlessly to out-of-sight places in the mouth.

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Getting around after a catastrophic spinal cord injury has gotten easier thanks to head-mounted steering systems, but there are plenty of problems inherent in those systems. Researchers at Georgia Tech have figured out a way to make mouth-controlled wheelchair navigation much easier and more effective by mounting the system inside the driver’s mouth.

The intraoral Tongue Drive System consists of a retainer worn on the roof of the mouth and a tongue stud outfitted with a magnet. The retainer has magnetic field sensors at each corner to detect the movement of the magnetized tongue stud and translate the tongue movements through an iPhone app and into movements of the user’s wheelchair.

This unique system could take the place of joystick controls and the simple sip-and-puff design that allows paraplegics to drive by sucking or blowing on a straw. The system is able to learn new commands and is highly sensitive, meaning that paralyzed users can look forward to a higher level of control over their movements than ever before.

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There was a time when people who lost teeth as adults were simply out of luck. When we developed dentures and dental implants, the situation improved for those who are dentally deficient. But dentures are uncomfortable, and the procedure for installing dental implants is rather barbaric. Researchers at Columbia University Medical Center have devised a new method for regrowing missing teeth in adults – right in their own mouths.

The technique, developed by Dr. Jeffrey Mao, involves placing a tooth “scaffolding” made of natural materials in the patient’s mouth and directing stem cells to develop into a new, healthy tooth. By growing a real tooth right in the patient’s mouth, the patient’s healing time is greatly reduced when compared to that required after dental implants, and the chance of rejection by the patient’s body is almost eliminated.

The new tooth develops new periodontal ligaments and alveolar bone, neither of which happen with traditional dental implants. The technique has only been tested in animals so far, but it has met with success in those trials. Maybe the most significant implication of this method is the fact that it stands to be far more affordable than traditional implants, making it possible for even people with limited funds to have a whole mouth full of healthy, beautiful teeth.

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