this post was submitted on 27 May 2024
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Technology

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[–] [email protected] 98 points 5 months ago (26 children)

I'm surprised that mammals evolved to not regrow teeth. You'd think it would be a significant advantage.

[–] [email protected] 34 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (9 children)

Most mammals instead evolved to have their teeth keep growing, like beavers, thus they need to keep using their teeth to keep them from growing out of control.

Secondly, humans in particular, added tooth-enamel-eating-bacteria into our diet hundreds of thousands of years ago. Before that, we didn't have a huge number of issues with our teeth, and so perhaps not enough time has actually passed since we got the bacteria eats our teeth for an evolutionary advantage that stops it from being an issue? Evolution isn't so cut and dry, it's not like it's trying to solve problems. People with resistances to mouth bacteria probably exist, but are they reproducing enough to become the dominant geneaology? Who the fuck knows?

[–] cheese_greater 4 points 5 months ago (4 children)

Why can't we eliminate the bacteria?

[–] bagelberger 2 points 5 months ago

Because then dentists would go out of business! 🙃

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