Stories about those little, white, hard things that grow in your head.
WHAT’S IN YOUR WALLET?
In March 2009, a customer at a Walmart in Falmouth, Massachusetts, was looking at a wallet he was thinking of buying when he unzipped one of its pockets—and found 10 human teeth inside it. Since there was no blood on any of the teeth, police could not use DNA testing to identify who they belonged to. A Walmart spokeswoman said it was an “isolated incident.”
A young girl had a loose baby tooth, so her parents tied a string around it…and attached it to a remote-controlled car. Mom then sent the car flying cross the living room and—pop!—out came the tooth. The parents filmed the event and put it YouTube. It has since been viewed more than 270,000 times. (The little girl, it should be said, was unharmed and seemed to get a kick out of the whole thing.)
In September 2009, Darrel Vandervort of Lakehurst, New Jersey, was arrested after he pulled several of his teeth out with a pair of pliers—and sprayed blood around a female friend’s apartment. Police said Vandervort was trying to frighten the woman.
Are you bored with your boring old jewelry? Of course you are! And that’s why you should get some new pieces from Australian jewelry designer Polly van der Glas, who makes rings, pendants, and necklaces—decorated with human teeth. “I have been collecting hair, teeth, and fingernails for years,” she says. “They line the shelves of my apartment in beautiful jars.” Prices go up to about $690 (U.S.) for a sterling-silver ring…with four large teeth sticking out if it.
PCs infected with software that allows hackers to control them remotely are called “zombie computers.”
Japanese researchers announced in 2009 that they had successfully implanted the jaws of several mice with “tooth seeds,” which later grew into mature, healthy teeth. The seeds were made up of cell tissue programmed with genetic instructions for growing teeth, and, the researchers said, the discovery could one day lead to growing replacement teeth, and perhaps even organs, in humans.
Seattle resident Shane Carlson was arrested in January 2010 and charged with several break-ins of cars, homes and dental offices. Carlson had been stealing old teeth from the offices, police said, and selling the gold fillings and caps he pried from them, netting up to $10,000 per robbery. The thefts had been going on for months, and police were only able to identify Carlson when someone found a bagful of teeth—roots and all—on a Seattle sidewalk, and forensic investigators found Carlson’s fingerprints on several of them.
Security guards at New York’s Citi Field were called to a restroom during a May 2009 baseball game between the New York Mets and Atlanta Braves…because a woman had gotten her arm stuck in a toilet. One of her gold teeth had fallen in, she said, and she’d tried to retrieve it. It took several hours to get the woman unstuck—and she never found her gold tooth. (The Mets also lost, 8–7.)
Elizabeth Smith of Florence, South Carolina, went to a dental clinic in 2006 to have a single cracked tooth repaired—but when she came out of the anesthesia, she found that all sixteen of her upper teeth had been removed. The clinic then tried to cover up their error by changing Smith’s medical records, according to the ensuing lawsuit. In 2009 a jury finally ruled in Smith’s favor and awarded her $2 million in damages. She plans to use the money on restorative surgery as soon as possible, her lawyer said.
Q: What is digital emunction? A: It's a fancy way of saying “picking your nose.”