6 thoughts on “A Gene To Grow Teeth?”

  1. I wonder if that gene is one that’s been hanging around from the days when we were part of the fish world (given the propensity of fish such as sharks to produce teeth throughout their life-span).

  2. Give me a break. Fish? Humans also have a number of genes that are identical to ones found in mushrooms and broccoli. Perhaps those are left over from our shrubbery ancestors. DNA is only comprised of four types of nucleotide subunits: adenine, cytosine, guanine, and thymine. With only four components there are bound to be patterns repeated throughout the plant and animal kingdom.

  3. I don’t think I’d want rows and rows of spare teeth cluttering up my mouth (my tongue gets enough grief from the teeth I have), but I sure wouldn’t mind being able to grow back the few I’ve lost over the years.

  4. Cool.

    As I recall it, E.E.”Doc” Smith had teeth regrowth in one of the Lensmen books, but as a post reactionless drive invention.

    If we’re lucky he just got the order of events wrong.

  5. Don, John B is quite right. These are likely genes from very distant ancestors, inasmuch as teeth are not a very recent invention.

    Your argument that there isn’t very much variation possible in DNA sequences — so you’re bound to see “accidental” duplications in different species — is not sound, mathematically. Ask yourself how many variations are possible on a “word” with 3.4 billion letters, each of which can be A, T, C or G. The answer is too large to write down. That’s why the chances of “accidental” duplication are zero. Any similarly in genes between organisms is considered the result of being related, evolutionarily speaking.

  6. Actually, I’d *give* a few teeth (anesthesia, please) for a true reactionless drive…

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