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Brushing your teeth: no longer the best thing for your teeth?
- Brakenshire 13y agoPossibly, maybe will no longer best the best thing for your teeth. Seems very interesting, but very early stage.
- s0rce 13y agoWhy is it snowing?
- cedar 13y agoits 1999
- nsmartt 13y agoWhy not? I find it to be fairly pleasant, albeit unnecessary.
- aestra 13y agoBecause it is extremely distracting and I actually couldn't read the article because of it.
- mistermann 13y agoWhen you say you couldn't read the article, could you expand on that? Were you physically unable to due to nausea or something like that, or moreso that you refuse to read it as a matter of principle because of the unnecessary animations?
- joesb 13y agoIt's weird but I found my self unable to focus and comprehend the contents. It's like I'm reading but I can't understand a whole sentence. It would be better if the snow is kept to the background area. Instead, it sometimes flew right past the exact word I was reading.
- aestra 13y agoI feel I am unable to block out a lot of activity going around in the background, in real life I also have the same reaction if there is tons of activity going on around me when I am trying to read. I couldn't concentrate on the contents because of the movement in the background. It gave me this weird sense of anxiety over what was going to happen next and was unable to focus and absorb the contents. I ended up just kinda skimming. I was anxious to try to get it over with.
- mistermann 13y agoWow, very interesting, thanks.
- MereInterest 13y agoBecause the animation is incredibly CPU intensive for the effect that it has.
- vehementi 13y agoIs it causing performance problems for you on the site? The algorithm's efficiency shouldn't be a factor in your decision here.
- MereInterest 13y agoMostly issues of laptop battery life and heating. I have a five-year-old laptop that can usually last about 3 hours when browsing the internet. Usually, that browsing consists of spikes of CPU activity when rendering the page, then low CPU activity when scrolling through. However, with that animation, the CPU activity stayed consistently high. This is enough to make the laptop uncomfortably warm and increase the fan speed, providing noise. It isn't something that makes the site unusable by any means, but it is something that gives an annoyance without a benefit to me.
- Schwolop 13y agoUrgh. Ctrl+A Ctrl+C Ctrl+L data:text/html, <html contenteditable> <ENTER> Ctrl+V phew
- agumonkey 13y agoI thought I had a sudden floaters spike. Very worried for a second. Who still does that ? /me summon printfriendly.com
- jdpage 13y agoI would guess that the wrinkle is that one's mouth would still be chock-full of bacteria, lending the breath a fœtid odour.
- sliverstorm 13y agoWhy are we randomly switching to latin characters?
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- jdpage 13y agoSorry. That's actually the original (and still an acceptable) spelling, and I rather prefer it. English doesn't really have enough vowels, so distinguishing between `e' and `œ' makes sense, orthographically. I also tend to use diæreses where appropriate. Of course, normally I would give at least a passing thought to using more modernized spellings in this context, but I have spent most of the week writing up a series of observation sessions and my brain is beginning to revolt, liquefy, and dribble out of my ears.
- bmelton 13y agoInteresting assertion. You're undoubtedly right, of course, but it just reminds me of the ideals promoted by the deodorant companies. Once upon a time, everybody smelled like everybody smells, which is to say, probably not quite as pleasant as people smell now -- arguably. Then somebody came along and invented deodorant, began marketing it to women to give them a competitive dating advantage -- "Smell better than the next woman and get more men" -- which they (historically obviously) fell for, and now deodorant is considered necessary... but for what purpose? People are very adaptive to smell, and beyond the same statistical outliers we have now, generally speaking, people would have smelled about the same. Now though, the bar has been arbitrarily raised, and the result is that everybody not wearing deodorant is a grotesquely smelling freak, where the only outcome is that, once again, we all smell the same, but slightly different -- and of course, we're now all spending an extra $10 a month on a product that nobody really needs, but that was marketed well enough initially that it's become a staple.
- goggles99 13y agoProbiotics will form the future of medical and dental preventative care. That and Epigenetics.
- toomuchtodo 13y agoAnd most likely nutrition. It appears that your weight is determined by your gut bacteria: https://www.google.com/search?q=gut+bacteria+obesity https://www.google.com/search?q=gut+bacteria+obesity
- tiatia 13y ago"Your weight is determined" No. If at all, they are only a part of the problem and you have the chicken - egg problem. Do you have different bacteria because you are fat or are you fat because you have different bacteria? Causes are: -genetic -epigenetic -life style -nutrition (cabrs!) -viruses (no kidding, obesity may be infectious) etc.
- drsingleton 13y agoI think the jury is still out on that. Metagenomic studies have only become possible in the past decade, and consequently there haven't been any long tern studies in humans. Studies in mice have show that the normal microbiota is rather static throughout the full life of the host. If this extends to humans, then the microbes are the "egg" in the equation.
- vezzy-fnord 13y agoExcessive brushing has always been detrimental to the enamel.
- bigd 13y agoneat snowing background, loved the fall direction controlled by the mouse motion.
- coldcode 13y agoIt would be neater if it piled up.
- Wingman4l7 13y agoObligatory mention of Betteridge's law of headlines: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headlines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headline...
- ok_craig 13y agoIt should be noted that the title on the actual blog does not contain a question mark.
- drsingleton 13y agoWow! A link on HN of a two year article gave my poor classroom blog a 5000 fold spike in page views. Apologies if the snow annoyed people, but it wasn't me but a checkbox on the free Wordpress backend. It doesn't even show on the mobile version. The science comments above are interesting, but my intended take home message was NOT to promote an alternative to the tried and true methods of proper dental care, but instead draw attention to the incredible complexity of the human oral microbiota.
- jafaku 13y agoIt's not really obligatory, and it would be nice if you guys just stopped posting that, especially on science articles since asking questions is what science does.
- Wingman4l7 13y agoFair enough. However, it's hoped that this might encourage less linkbait-y titles, especially for overviews of new science research. A headline like "Biofilm-inhibiting bacteria may provide an alternative to brushing your teeth" conveys much more information about the content (and doesn't break that "law", either).
- saurik 13y agoMost of the time the people writing these articles have never even heard of Hacker News; this is just a more socially acceptable way to flaunt trivia in front of people to feel smarter while at the same time being able to call "first!".
- dredmorbius 13y agoMight be worth mentioning Weston Price, an early 20th century dentist "known primarily for his theories on the relationship between nutrition, dental health, and physical health. He founded the research institute of the National Dental Association, which later became the research section of the American Dental Association, and served as its chair from 1914–1928." (Wikipedia) In particular, he drew a lot of relationships between diet and not only dental but general health. Some of which sounds a bit kooky but a lot of which seems to be getting confirmed, especially regards the role of sugar and processed carbohydrates. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weston_Price https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weston_Price
- yetanotherphd 13y agoThat is in no way relevant to this article, it's enough to have people promoting fad diets on articles where it is actually relevant, without this too.
- lukifer 13y agoIt isn't exactly controversial that frequent sugar consumption exacerbates oral microbial growth. My mouth health got drastically better after giving up soda, and more so again after giving up grains.
- dredmorbius 13y agoThe salient part is Price's assertion that health was strongly dependent on diet. As I said, it's kooky, and frankly, I don't know whether I find his views credible or not, though I've shifted from my initial highly skeptical viewpoint. The work of others in the relationship of sugars to health (particularly Roger Lustig and Gary Taubes) makes me somewhat more receptive of Price's general theory. My reason for posting was more to show that lines of inquiry similar / related to those of the source article have been pursued for a long time. So: yes, actually, it is relevant. Incidentally: if you're familiar with any specific criticisms of Prices work, posting those might be of interest. To myself as well as others.
- erikb 13y agoWell, let's not be too fast about throwing away a well known solution because one research shows that there might be (better?) alternatives.