I'm currently in the middle of dental school, and unfortunately this technology can't completely replace 500,000 rpm air turbine drills (a technology that is, t

I'm currently in the middle of dental school, and unfortunately this technology can't completely replace 500,000 rpm air turbine drills (a technology that is, to correct the article, NOT from the 1880s). Here's the problem: bacteria (specifically, the acid they produce from metabolism of sugars) demineralize the hydroxylapatite of enamel (the stuff covering your teeth). Enamel is not biologically viable and therefore does not have the ability to _regenerate_. But it can, under certain circumstances, _remineralize_. SO, eliminating harmful bacteria using plasma technology WOULD give portions of enamel the opportunity to remineralize. Unfortunately, if a caries lesion ("cavity") penetrates to the point that it reaches underlying, vital tooth structure (dentin, pulp), then surgical removal of the infected tooth tissue is the only way to effectively treat the growing lesion. Bacterial control by plasma at this point would be insufficient to keep the structure of the tooth crown sound. Thus, you need a drill to cut away tooth structure. Furthermore, I object to the article's use of "sterilize". It's important to understand that epithelial or mucosal surfaces covering the human body can never be sterilized ("all living organisms eliminated except prions"). The bacterial load can only be reduced, never eliminated. Then again... this article is a TechCrunch production, so what do we expect?