For over a hundred years, dentists have been repairing cavities by removing the decayed tooth tissue with a drill and filling the hole with metal or plastic material. Depending on the cavity’s depth, this method can be unpleasant to downright painful for the patient, and it has to be repeated periodically. 

        “You’re really in that cycle of repair and replacement for the rest of the tooth’s life,” said Rebecca Moazzea, senior lecturer at King’s College. 

        A damaged tooth’s enamel can be replaced naturally, but the process is too slow to stop the work of bacteria that build up in tiny cracks. Now, a British company called Reminova has developed a method for speeding up this natural remineralization of early-stage cavities. 

        “We’ve just found a way to make that a much faster process,” said Jeff Wright, Reminova’s chief executive officer. “Driving healthy calcium and phosphate minerals into your enamel, and through a natural process, it will bind on and add to the enamel that’s there.” 

        Here’s how it works: After cleaning the early-stage cavity with a method that does not require drilling, the dentist covers it with a mineral solution and applies an electrical current that is too weak for the patient to feel. The deposited mineral quickly hardens, completely filling the cavity. 

        Researchers say this method could be especially useful for children. 

        “If children have a better experience of going to the dentist, so they haven’t had necessary drilling and injections for routine fillings, then they’ll be much more positive in later life and probably become much more regular patients,” said Dr. Barry Quinn, a consultant at King’s College. 

        Dentists point out that the new method is most efficient on early-stage cavities, which makes regular dental checkups essential. The whole treatment lasts about as long as a regular drill-and-fill procedure. 

        Researchers say they are confident that the new method can be further developed for treating later-stage cavities. And they remind us that regular brushing with fluoride toothpaste helps prevent cavities in the first place.

       Is there any immortal creature in the world? Despite only being only three millimeters in diameter on average, adult versions of immortal jellyfish (Turritopsis dohrnii) have a huge party trick: they can roll back their biological clock when injured or on the verge of starvation. This means, in theory, they could live forever. Could humans harness their abilities to eradicate ageing completely?

       As scientists have known, the reason of human ageing is a process called trans-differentiation. “This is about how a fully formed specialized adult cell can become another type of specialized adult cell. It’s how a cell can adapt,” explains Dr. Maria Pia Miglietta. The exact mechanism behind trans-differentiation is still a mystery to scientists. However, as Miglietta explains, the answer will likely be found in the jellyfish’s genes. “It most certainly has something to do with the DNA,” she says. “It’s the DNA that programs a cell––certain genes being ‘turned on’ or ‘off’ will determine what sort of cell it is. We’re far away from any kind of real-world application,” says Miglietta. “But we hope that studying what happens in these jellyfish can tell us how their genes change cells––and how these changed cells integrate with others. This is the base of understanding cellular regeneration and tissue regeneration.” 

      However, there are many challenges. These jellyfish have only been studied sporadically since the early 1980s, meaning experts have only a few decades’ worth of data. While an immortal jellyfish can age in reverse, it can also be easily killed by predators including various fish, sharks, turtles and even other jellyfish. “They’re incredibly sensitive, from the water temperature to their plankton and fish egg diet,” says Miglietta. “The real paradox is they’re actually really hard to keep alive!”