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Learn About Your TEETH

What’s hard as a rock, can cut through a string, but needs the tender feeling of soft bristles every day? For this month’s LittleClickers column, we’ll examine something that everyone needs and uses, but we rarely think about: -- your teeth.

1. Is a tooth dead or alive? At http://bit.ly/flg084, you learn that each tooth is a living, growing thing, even though you can’t feel things with them.
2. Who has more teeth -- you or a dog? To find this answer, you have to visit two sites: WebMD for people (http://bit.ly/g6y8Sm) and eHow for dogs (http://bit.ly/gxHHda). So who has the most? Your dog. According to WebMD, by the time you’re an adult, you’ll have 32 teeth. eHow says that adult dogs have 42 teeth. Like a human, a baby dog is born with no teeth, grows baby teeth that fall out, and then grows adult teeth, which explains why they like to chew on things so much.
3. T/F Did George Washington really have wooden teeth? At the National Museum of Dentistry, you learn that George Washington did indeed have false teeth. But they were made out of ivory, not wood. You can see a picture of them, at http://bit.ly/g0eUhy.
4. How old are you when your teeth stop falling out? According to WebMD’s page on baby teeth care, http://bit.ly/AfjcP, your last tooth falls out when you are about 12 years old.
5. What animal had the biggest teeth? According to this ThinkQuest page, http://bit.ly/i7Ny7u, the Megalodon shark was over 40 feet long, and had teeth 7 inches long. Fortunately, that shark lived during the times of the dinosaurs.
6. Can you tell an ultrosonic scaler from a cavity prep? Take the kid’s quiz at http://www.mouthpower.org/ and test your knowledge. You’ll also learn about foods that promote good dental health, and other interesting things.
7. Want more? Visit Children's Technology Review's playlist (at right), to view select YouTube videos based on topics in this month's column.