German dentists develop 'painless' plasma tooth-blaster In-mouth
light sabre to replace drilling More news of exotic high
technology benefiting the human race today, as German gnasher-
boffins announce a cunning plan to replace dentists' drills with
"painless, contact-free" plasma beam devices. Rotting teeth, one
of the most painful (and expensive) medical problems faced by
modern humans, are caused when mouth bacteria such as
Streptococcus mutans and Lactobacillus casei build up on the
teeth. The dastardly micro-organisms can erode a tooth's tough
enamel, coating and start to infect the "dentin" tissue beneath
it, eventually destroying large parts of the tooth and - when
they reach the living pulp at its centre - causing intense pain.
Normally a dentist will tackle such a cavity by drilling out all
the infected tissue before putting in a filling. Such drilling
often requires a local anaesthetic, meaning that the procedure
is skilled and expensive work. But now, according to boffins at
the Leibniz-Institute of