The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week - Marie Antoinette Wearing Braces, Secret Immortal Cells, Chasing the Tooth Worm

Episode Date: June 3, 2026

Hari Kondabolu and Priyanka Wali join the show to talk about cells taken secretly and unethically... but ended up changing human health forever. Then, Rachel divulges a plethora of facts about dental care of yesteryear, from how Marie Antoinette wore braces (yes, seriously), to how Neanderthals drilled for cavities. The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week is a podcast by Popular Science. Share your weirdest facts and stories with us in our ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Facebook group⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ or ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠tweet at us⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Click here to learn more about all of our stories! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Links to Rachel's TikTok, Newsletter, Merch Store and More: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://linktr.ee/RachelFeltman⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  Rachel now has a Patreon, too! Follow her for exclusive bonus content: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.patreon.com/RachelFeltman⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Link to Jess' Twitch: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.twitch.tv/jesscapricorn⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Link to all of Jess' content: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.jesscapricorn.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ -- Follow our team on Twitter Rachel Feltman: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.twitter.com/RachelFeltman⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Produced by Jess Boddy: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.twitter.com/JessicaBoddy⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Popular Science: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.twitter.com/PopSci⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Theme music by Billy Cadden: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://open.spotify.com/artist/6LqT4DCuAXlBzX8XlNy4Wq?si=5VF2r2XiQoGepRsMTBsDAQ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Spotify Advertising. You're among fans. At Popular Science, we report and write dozens of science and text stories every week. And while most of the stuff we stumble across makes it into our articles, we also find plenty of weird facts that we just keep around the office. So we figured, why not share those with you? Welcome to the weirdest thing I learned this week from the editors of Popular Science. I'm Rachel Feltman. I'm Hurricane DeVolu.

And I'm Dr. Priyanka Wally. Welcome to the show. It's so great to have both of you on. It's a pleasure to be here, yes. I really love the new show you guys have. I definitely want you to tell our listeners all about it. And I also have to say it's required by law that I've been a fan of Harry's work since seeing him perform in my weird tiny colleges student union.

That's right. And all the alums of Simon's Rock have, I think, take great personal pride in your in your career success because we're like, yeah, we knew that guy was funny. And I was there like every year for a stretch. Yeah, for a little bit, yeah. And you had those weird beanbag chairs in the union and everybody. It was so, it was weird. You were all a bunch of baby geniuses.

And it was, they were all like, if I remember right, you were all like 15, 16, 17, but you were in college. Yes. Yeah. I remember thinking that was. so, like, ridiculous and amazing that that was even possible. It was very silly. It was very silly. And we loved your shows.

Oh, I loved being there. I also loved being that young. I remember that also quite vividly. Ah, what a time. What a time. Well, thank you both for coming on. And we do tell our listeners, those of them who, you know, were not introduced to some of your work, you know, in, like, gosh, 2011. Yeah.

Could you tell them a little bit about who you guys are and what you do? Priyanka, do you want to go first? No, no, no, you go. That's such a, just roll into that intro. I'm Hurricane Bolu. I'm a stand-up comedian, writer, and podcaster. The co-host of the show Health Stuff with my friend Priyanka Chopra. Oh, I already screwed that up.

I already screwed that. I don't know how Priyanka Chopra came out of my mom, Priyanka Wally. That's Freudian. Are you friends with Priyna? I met her once and it was awkward. Oh, interesting. Well, I want to hear about that later. I can't believe I said that.

I can't believe I got your last name. Clearly, you know, comedians usually wake up around 2 p.m. Eastern, so this is clearly early for me. Yeah, I've been, you know, historically, I've toured all over the world colleges and comedy clubs. rock clubs and all that. And this year, I'm focused on writing a book, which will hopefully come out in a year plus time. But yeah, it's been really fun doing this podcast with Pryanka Wally, my friend Pryanka Wally, Pryanka Wally. And I'll roll into that. So yeah, I'm Priyanka Wally, definitely not Pryanka Chopra. I'm a internal medicine physician by trade. I'm also board certified in obesity medicine and came into the podcasting world by segue through stand-up comedy,

which I was performing for many years before the pandemic. And yeah, so we have this fun podcast that we do called Health Stuff. And it's where Harry and I just kind of talk about the health questions that really keep people up at night. And we bring in medical experts and curiosity and a lot of humanity. And we tell medical stories and sometimes they're historical stories. Sometimes they're surprising stories. And we'll bring on experts to talk about just like everyday topics like sleep, hair loss, sexual health.

Earwax. Earwax. And we try and do it in a way that actually makes sense for lots of people. Yeah, we love that. Listeners, if you don't check out health stuff already, I highly recommend it. it. But for today, we are here on the weirdest thing I learned this week. So let's jump right into it. So on the weirdest thing I learned this week, we start by each offering up some kind of tease about a fact or story that we found in the course of reading, writing, reporting,

web-mdying, et cetera. Does anybody use webmd anymore? I guess now it's people sitting up asking chat GPT about rashes or whatever. But, you know, same as it ever was. we decide which one we just absolutely have to hear more about first. Then once we've had time to spin our little science yarns, we reconvene and decide what the weirdest thing we learned this week actually was, except not really. We had too many three-way ties, so now it's just sort of whatever. But we have fun. So guys, what's your tease? Yeah, so there's a really, really weird story that we've come across over.

doing the show. And what's crazy is that it's at the center of modern medicine. And it's almost impossible if you haven't heard it before. Do you want to say the one-liner, Harry? Sure. A woman goes to the hospital for cancer treatment. Doctors take herself without her knowledge, and those cells end up changing science forever.

Damn. Right? It's a good story and one that I've sort of, I know way less about this story than by rights I should. So I'm excited, even though I know what you're going to talk about, I'm excited to hear you get into it. My tease is that I'm going to talk about Marie Antoinette's braces and also a recently discovered medieval grill. And I will go first because today I'm doing kind of a double-barreled fact so I can do a little bit before you guys and a little bit after listeners. I know it's a little different from our usual format, but don't worry, you're safe. You'll be okay. So I'm going to roll right into it. So yes, Marie Antoinette's braces. I'm curious, folks, including

Jess, you know, what does that, what do you think when you hear the phrase Maria Antoinette's braces? Well, I can't tell if you're talking about her teeth braces or her leg braces. That's where I'm trying to decide. Teeth. Teeth. Okay, teeth braces. Okay. I did not know Mary Antoinette. I had braces. Yeah. Yeah. Jess is, you know, confused face Jess. I mean, yeah, I'm, it's thunderstorming like crazy.

That's why I'm staying muted. I don't know if you can hear it. But yeah, I don't know. I, I assumed like a leg brace. I didn't think she would have a tooth. That's really fair. I came across a random clip from a show about Marie Antoinette where she was getting old fashion braces like strapped on.

onto her face. And there's been a lot of great sort of like women's beauty related body horror in media right now. There's this horror movie that came out recently called The Ugly Stepsister that also does a lot of like period cosmetology as extremely high horror. But this was not, this was like a period drama show. And I was like, did that happen? I don't know. Seems kind of fake. Certainly I've never heard of it. Turns out it probably did. actually happen. Modern dentistry, as we know it, was pretty much invented in France in the early 1700s, which is not to say people in other parts of the world or before this time didn't take care of their teeth, I will get into that in part two. But before the 18th century, you generally

either had like hygiene measures, you know, things that you swished or chewed, you know, to varying degrees of effect. Some could be really actually helpful. Some were actually helpful. Some were actually actively harmful and in retrospect make us go gross. But, you know, kind of the same as probably a lot of what's on the market today. Your results may vary. And then you had, you know, people who would yank bad teeth out, often badly. And that was sort of the whole of it. There wasn't much meeting in the middle in terms of like surgical dental care or, you know, really invasive treatment of tooth-related problems. And that really changed. with this guy Pierre Fouchard. He's often called the father of dentistry, and he laid out a lot of

the groundwork for the care of teeth being like a true medical and surgical profession. And often when we say that we're, you know, sort of actually talking about folk practitioners being shunted away while doctors, you know, try to silo what they're doing. But in the case of dentistry, especially in France, that really wasn't what was happening. They were saying, maybe you should stop yanking teeth out of people so bad that it can like kill them. You know, we do love that dentistry became actually like a medicalized thing. And it came up with some like pretty revolutionary ideas, for example, that using brick dust to scrub your teeth clean might hurt them, maybe. Yeah. He also was like, we really. We really. He also was like, we

really have to stop entertaining the tooth worm, which was this idea that you see going back into antiquity and was still kind of pervasive in some circles in Europe, that cavities might be caused by worms, which kind of makes sense if you look at what's inside a tooth, you know, you have these like nerve roots. But still, he was like, listen, it's the 1700s where we're smart grownups. We know there aren't worms in there. He pulled out a microscope to prove it. But so all of this is to say, Marie Antoinette was actually kind of living in a time and place where one might get an orthodontic appliance strapped onto their face.

There doesn't seem to be much solid info on her specific experience with orthodontia. Most of what's out there is this like very recursive Google search optimization loop that's all just various orthodontic practices around the U.S., like with their article on how Marie and Twinette headbraces. They're all citing each other. We have no idea where it goes back to. Everybody's just, everybody's got the factoids. Nobody's got the facts. But I did find historians saying that her teeth were straightened as part of her preparation

for her marriage to Louis. And we do know that the earliest appliance we'd recognize as sort of a precursor two braces did exist by then because Fouchard talked about it in a book he wrote in 1723, which was almost half a century before Marie Antoinette's wedding. And it was called a bandolet or a bando. I was basically this like horseshoe shaped piece of metal with little perforations in it. So you would put that on the inside or outside of the teeth and then use silk or metal threads to attach it to individual teeth. So you know, similar. to modern braces, you know, applying force to loosen the teeth and get them to move. And then

the idea being that you sort of hold them well enough in place while that some like bone regrowth happens, that maybe they stay where you put them. And by the 1750s, the official dentist of the French King actually was writing about his improvements on this concept. So yeah, by the time Marie Antoinette was at court, if you wanted nice teeth, you would probably get kind of braces from a French dentist. And that brings me to the fact that France was in kind of a weird place when it came to teeth at this time in the late 1700s. So in 1787, there was this big kerfuffle in the art world because this artist, Madame Vigille Lebrun, I don't speak French, She painted a self-portrait where she was holding her child and, get this, smiling, how dare, with teeth. Now, I looked up this portrait and, like, she's, like, smizing.

There's, like, a little sliver of white between her lips. This is not, like, a full-on toothy grin. But apparently it was super shocking to people's sensibilities because at that time, in the art world in Europe, showing open mouth smiles that that was a way of showing that your subject was like obviously a plebe or even like actively trying to make somebody look grotesque or simple or evil because for several hundred years the mouth had not been a very pretty place in europe as i mentioned before most available dental treatment had been pretty ineffectual pretty barbaric plus they were also eating a lot of sugar olive of a sudden. In the 17th century, because of the Atlantic slave trade, there was suddenly just this massive export of sugar to Europe. So people were going sugar crazy. And by 1750, it was actually the most valuable commodity in the European trade. So basically, more and more people had access to sugar and they were eating a lot and their teeth were rotting. And that was not good. And so perhaps

this has something to do with why dentistry became such a priority, something that the people in the medical profession were so interested in, something that the royals, you know, wanted, perfected, and done on them. So by the time that portrait was making a bunch of dudes mad, French mouths had changed radically because the invention of modern dentistry as a medical practice meant that now these people who had spent several decades having nasty pitted teeth had often very straight white teeth. And actually, there was kind of a reputation growing among other Europeans that the French were like smiley people with nice teeth.

Plus the rise of the bourgeoisie meant there were suddenly more non-royals who could afford to care about their appearances and pay people to. make their teeth nice. I've also read a couple of historians saying that like even the pre-revolution cultural vibes may have helped make French smiles more of a priority. Obviously this is a little squishy, but I kind of love this hot take that it became very cool to like sit around gabbing and having discourse and engaging deeply with your like fellow man and all that.

And so smiling was kind of in vogue and like people were going to see into your mouth more if you weren't, you know, if you weren't headed for the guillotine, I guess. So, yeah, that people were paying more attention, spending more money, having nicer teeth. And by the time this artist painted a portrait where she dared to have her mouth open, you know, it was actually quite quite commonplace for a French person of, you know, modest to wealthy means to have a pretty mouth. A French dentist also invented around this time what he called incorruptible teeth. Those were just porcelain dentures. So, you know, a lot of people were going around in their like two white veneer era probably, but compared to what was available before, I'm sure everyone thought they looked great.

And so, yeah, all of this is to say that, yes, Austrian teen getting a makeover to go to Versailles, she would almost certainly have had some gnarly dental work done. And am I disappointed that the Coppola movie did not feature Christian Dunstan Brieces? Yeah. Absolutely. But, you know, hindsight is 2020. It sure makes you take for granted, you know, getting braces in the modern age. I had braces.

Yeah. And, you know, some of you of my friends had braces, you know, it was just sort of like, part of growing up, I suppose, here in the U.S. And you just take it for granted. I mean, like, there was a whole, like, status symbol back in the day with, you know, French culture. Totally. Yeah, like, a lot of judginess as well, I suppose. It's, like, really interesting.

I was thinking about how, like, English dentistry historically has been known as terrible. And meanwhile, right next door, you have French dentistry being amazing. Is it they intentionally keep it from the British? Is that what they did? Or were they were the British like, no, we're not going to do what you do. It's too French. Too French to have your teeth fixed. Yeah.

Honestly. Possibly. Like they, the reason the teeth got more crooked is because they colonized places and then extracted sugar and ate the sugar. Oh, that's good. It's like. Yeah. Imperialism makes you ugly.

Yeah. who already it was true. So it's like maybe you shouldn't colonize human beings and you didn't need to get your teeth fixed. Yeah. Yeah.

It's true. Yeah, it's funny. I was thinking about England with this a lot too because I didn't look into sort of what the cultural dynamics were with dentistry at the time. I would not be surprised if there was a lag where over in England they were going like,

those French people, they'll do anything fancy like brushing their teeth. But I do, I have heard that, you know, sort of the reason that British people, you know, have this reputation for bad teeth is just because orthodontia became more of a widespread thing, like one generation earlier in the U.S. and a lot of other countries than in the U.K. And I don't know how true that is. It might be kind of just like a thing people say. but, you know, it's super interesting to me that things change so rapidly in France that a bunch of dudes from the art world

were like, we're showing our teeth now. Everyone was like, yeah, I spent $10,000 on these teeth. I'm showing them. But, yeah, the history of dental appliances and dentistry goes back way, way further than this, which I will talk about in part two of my. my fact, but for now we are going to take a quick break. Start your Alienware journey with the streamlined Alienware 15.

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with a fit that creates natural movement and a wide leg that feels modern, not overwhelming. Plus, that signature, wait, for this price, moment. Old Navy's drapey denim wide leg. Okay, we're back. And before I delve even deeper into tooth history, why don't you guys share your shocking medical history story? Sure. Our story is about a woman named Henrietta Lax, who was a 34-year-old black woman. mother of five, living in Baltimore in the early 1950s. She went to Johns Hopkins Hospital with

severe pelvic pain and bleeding. And during her nine months of treatment for cervical cancer, before she died from the disease, doctors took samples of her cancerous tissue without asking her permission. Yeah. And then what happened next? Literally completely transformed medicine and medical research, scientists realized that her cells behaved unlike anything they'd ever seen before. So normally human cells, when you take them outside of the human body, they die pretty quickly. And at that time, in the 1950s, researchers, they couldn't figure out how to keep tissue and tissue cells alive in a laboratory environment for more than a few days. But Henry DeLax cells, they actually kept reproducing over and over again. They were actually the first

immortalized cells. And when I say immortal, I'm not saying that they were deliberately engineered to be immortal. The cells' immortality arose basically from a natural infection with HPV, human papillomavirus type number 18. which actually was the virus that caused Henrietta Lax to develop cervical cancer. And so the HPV actually changed the normal cells' systems, control systems, and it turned off important tumor suppressor mechanisms, and it signaled the cells to keep growing. This is honestly one of the most important scientific discoveries of the last century,

and those cells became known as HALA cells using the first two letters of her first and last name. And once scientists realized what they had, HALA cells were used everywhere. For example, when it comes to polio vaccine research, HALA cells were used as a host system to grow and quantify poliovirus in the laboratory. They were used in cancer studies, genetics, IVF research, even worked tied to the COVID vaccine decades later. Yeah, so how exactly did these scientists use the HALA cells to study cancer? So, for example, before HALA cells existed, they couldn't easily study human cancer in a lab. But then when these HALA cells came into existence, they could literally watch cancer cells grow,

divide, spread under a microscope. And so this allowed them to understand what makes cancer cells different from normal, healthier cells. testing cancer drugs. Scientists could add different medicines to dishes of HALA cells to see which ones killed the cancer cells or slowed their growth. This was much faster, cheaper, and safer than testing drugs directly in people. If a drug worked against HALA cells, it could then move forward to further testing. And specifically with Henrietta Lacks' case, Henrietta was infected with HPV. And by studying the DNA inside the HALA cells, that's how scientists actually discovered the HPV virus. And they could see that it was actually inserting itself into the cells DNA. And so this kind of proved the theory

that certain viruses can cause cancer. And actually that discovery eventually led to the development of the HPV vaccine, which we know now prevents cervical cancer in millions of people. Basically, modern medicine was built in part by using these cells. Pharmaceutical companies, research institutions, biomedical labs, everybody wanted access to them. And that's where the story becomes complicated. Because while Henrietta laxia cells were helping generate major scientific breakthroughs and enormous profits, her family had no idea this was happening for years. Yeah.

So her family wasn't compensated. They weren't consulted. And let's, you know, let's go back to the beginning. Henrietta herself was never consented to do any of this. In fact, her family didn't even know her cells were being used until decades later in 1973, more than 20 years after her death. And the only reason they found out was because researchers contacted her children asking for blood samples.

And the family was like, what? And that's when they began to realize that actually their mom's cells were not only being used without their awareness, but had also become one of the most important tools in modern medicine. Right. And even after learning the truth, the Lax family spent years fighting for recognition and control over how Henrietta's cells and genetic data were being used. Eventually, the family reached an agreement that gave researchers access to HALA cell genome data only with the family. family's involvement and consent. Yeah. So by 2023, then finally the family reached a settlement with a pharmaceutical company that

had directly profited from the HALA cells for decades. And this marked one of the first major legal acknowledgments of the exploitation at the center of Henrietta Lack's story. But her story still raises huge questions about consent. ownership, race, profit, and who benefits from medical innovation. And honestly, that's why Henrietta lacks, the story continues to matter. It's not just medical history. It's a conversation about ethics, power, and who gets protected by the systems we trust

with our bodies. Yeah. And, you know, again, the weirdest thing you learn. I mean, this is like an extremely weird thing to do to another human being. Yeah. You don't just take people's body parts and then exploit and use them for decades. It's crazy because this story, I mean, it forces us to hold like these two truths, right? Like there has been incredible medical progress contributed thanks to Henri de lax cells.

And the foundation of that progress was on exploitation. And it's important to understand that this. isn't just one isolated story, which it never is an isolated story, right? It exists within a much larger history of black Americans being experimented on, denied informed consent, or mistreated by medical institutions. Yeah. And, you know, I think it's important to name that, right? Because there's, there is medical mistrust. You know, this is why a lot of people push back, you know, and there have been like actual entire communities that, you know, have experienced deep betrayal by the medical community. And that mistrust is like a very real response to very real history.

Yeah, it's it's not irrational. Right. Some people call it institutional and trustworthiness. The idea that trust has to be earned through transparency, accountability, and ethical treatment, especially when institutions have violated that trust before. So, you know, when I went to medical school, nobody taught me or told me that, hey, the textbooks that are teaching you about these cells are literally because of the exploitation of another human being. And I think it's really important that not only do all medical providers know that, but I think all non-medical providers, just people, like we should know that all of the, research and advancements that we've had, like, came at the expense of another human being. And that person deserves due credit. Yeah, absolutely.

Well, and I think, you know, to your point earlier, this is such a bizarre and literally tangible example. Like this woman's cells are being kept and used in perpetuity. But it's a great reminder of all of the instances of medical exploitation, you know, much of it very racially motivated, class motivated, that are slightly less tangible, you know, might not be as easy to convey as they literally stole this person's cells and used them for everything forever and ever. Yeah, like you said, systemically, there are so many stories like this. So to ask a question that's, you know, not why the story is important, but still, I think a lot of people wonder about, do we have any idea what made her cells like so magnificent and unique?

Well, it came down to the fact that she was infected with the HPV, the high risk HPV number 18. and I kind of gently brushed on on the science behind it. But basically HPV 18, virus number 18, it can change the cells' normal control systems that kind of keep things in balance to not grow and become cancerous. So it basically, HPV 18 turns off important tumor suppressor genes in those cells. and then it also activates telomerase, which is an enzyme that rebuilds telomeres, which help keep the cells alive. So essentially it turns off the tumor suppressors and it turns on the things that

allow the cells to keep dividing again and again. And that increases signals to tell the cells to keep growing. So HPV18 is gnarly in that sense because it just will mutate your cell into this like hyper reproducing cell. Yeah. Which is also a good PSA for people with services to go get screened because you can test for HPV, especially the high-risk ones, including HPV 18. Absolutely.

Okay, we're going to take one more quick break and then we'll be back with just a few more teeth-related facts. What's the real science behind all the popular UFO claims on television? What's the true history behind today's growing beliefs in Atlantis, the flat earth theory, and ancient aliens? And when you take away the media hype, what do scientists really say about COVID-19 and global warming? Since 2006, the Skeptoid podcast has been revealing the true science, true history, and true facts behind nearly a thousand of our most popular urban legends and mysteries. Each episode of Skeptoid looks at a famous story you know and reveals, the part of it you haven't heard. Check out episodes covering mysteries such as popular ghost stories,

famous UFO cases, alternative science claims, cryptids and urban legends, or conspiracy theories. Find out why the truth behind these popular legends is even more interesting. Listen wherever you get your podcasts, just search for Skeptoid. That's S-K-E-P-O-I-D. Or visit skeptoid.com for full transcripts of the entire catalog. Skeptoid, critical analysis of pop phenomena. Okay, we're back, and I promised a medieval gold grill, tooth grill, not meat grill. So while French dentists in the 1700s may have done the first known work using metal to like force teeth to move, those weren't the first metal dental appliances per se.

researchers have actually found lots of dental bridges that were almost certainly mostly just cosmetic or maybe, you know, served to hold a tooth in place if you bit very, very gently. But, yeah, there was recently a study on a 20-carat gold wire attached to the jaw of a middle-aged Scottish man who he lived between 1460 and 1670 somewhere in there in. Aberdeen. And so basically, you can see pictures of this online. I'll definitely post them at a popsyd.com

slash weird when this episode goes live. But basically, in this jaw, in the lower front teeth, you can see this wire sort of drawn to wrap around some teeth. And there's a spot where it seems like it's meant to secure maybe a loose incisor or a false tooth.

And, you know, this was well before dentistry emerged as a profession, but this does show, you know, some amount of skill. So researchers think this would have been maybe a jeweler or a barber or somebody who sort of made dentures for folks. And this guy was probably pretty wealthy. I'll get into some of the reasons why it seems unlikely that this was common in Aberdeen at the time. But yeah, it seems like, you know, things were probably largely cosmetic. You know, maybe there was some hope of maintaining oral function. But when you look at these like little wires wrapped around some wiggly little teeth, you know, nobody was like eating a steak with these dental bridges.

And we see these dental bridges dating back at least to around the 7th century BC. Etruscans seem to really like them. They were popular with well-to-do ladies, at least until Roman. influence put them out of fashion. I guess Romans did not like wrap in gold around your teeth. But basically there were these bands of gold and they were designed to like wrap around some stable teeth and then hold others in place, whether that was a tooth that had fallen out or a loose tooth or a false tooth either from another person or from an animal. Apparently they would do that sometimes. What's interesting is that nearly all of the bridges we find from this period replaced

central or lateral incisors, which archaeologists say were usually the last ones for people to lose, just sort of naturally. So some scholars have suggested that ladies actually had teeth extracted just so they could like bedazzle them. They were being like, take out some of these teeth, wrap them in golds, pop them back in. But other than this trend among rich ladies for gold teeth, a lot of examples from, you know, this sort of pre-dental era seem to have, likely been post-mortem. I was about like completing the body before burial. I see a lot of this in ancient Egypt. You can tell the difference because someone's actually wearing this habitually for a while while they're alive. The wire is going to form a groove in the tooth or at least otherwise

show signs of wear against the tooth. And for a lot of this, these like old school examples of metal in mouth, it's very clearly something that was put on. And then, never used, but we do see, including with this Scottish guy, evidence that people were, you know, probably not with very much success, but they were biting stuff while wearing these teeth. That sort of functional orthonic work probably ties back to the Arab physician Alzaharavi, who did most of his work around the year 1000, incredible medical pioneer, lots of surgical devices that he designed. He also figured out humophilia was a familial disease, many other accomplishments. often referred to in text, if you've ever seen the name, Albuquesas, a Latinization of Abu al-Kasim,

which is like one-fifth of his name. And that was the nickname given to him by, you know, many of his European colleagues, I suppose. And wow. So he was really, wait, he discovered hemophilia was familial, too? Yeah, yeah. And I mean, granted, you know, because of where we were in medical history, you know, how much did we know about the mechanics of hemophilia? Limited, probably. But yeah, he did put together that this was something that you were seeing in families and that it was that it had some relationship to somebody's family tree. Wow, he had like a lot of, he had a lot of time on his hands.

Like he did a lot. He did a lot. He really did. And that people didn't even use his role name. You know, that's just how it goes. But yeah, a few hundred years later, they were giving him credit for the idea of tying a loose or replacement tooth to the one next to it with a fine gold chain. So, yeah, this guy in Scotland had essentially one of his dental appliances, several hundred

years down the road. Now, as for, you know, whether this was a typical thing in Aberdeen, in like around the 14, 1500s. No, accounts from Aberdeen indicate that one local treatment for tooth pain was cow dung poultice. So, yeah, really, this guy was really seeking out some concierge medicine. But, and yeah, there's also, it's like, you know, the gold would have been expensive. Like I said before, even though nobody was like specialized in orthodontia at this time, Someone specialized in metalworking and or teeth would have need to put this in for him.

Some kind of Smith would have needed to, you know, make this very pure gold. So all this is to say, like, this guy probably traveled to get this done. He was probably the richest man in Aberdeen. And he really wanted that tooth to stay in his mouth for cosmetic reasons. Can we just talk about, can we back up and talk about. cow dung poultis as a pain treatment for tooth pain. Is that correct? Yep. So what it, so what you just put the poultice, like how does that work? I need to understand how do you treat pain with a cow dung poultice? Is that you expose the person to cow dung and then there's in so much pain

from the cow dung poultice that they forget about their tooth pain? It's a great question. I, and I, I can't say, I know, but one imagines that if somebody like held a cow paddy up to the side of your face, it would distract you a lot probably. And also maybe be kind of warm. I don't know. Maybe I'm giving them too much credit, but that's that's sort of the main potential mechanism I can see is warmth and being so horrible that you want to tell the lady putting it on your face that you actually feel so much better and that it worked really well. So you're assuming it's fresh. It's not dried hard cow dung. Well, and that's true. It could totally be dry hard cow dung and, you know, then you it's possible it was like mixed in and packed into a tooth

also totally possible, which, you know, I don't think would go well, sort of from a microbial standpoint. But I would go well from like keeping the dental. in business standpoint because you're basically like reinfecting your patient with the bacteria so you can like take more teeth out. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and I'm I'm grossly paraphrasing, but the research paper that I was reading that, you know, talked about what other people were doing for teeth in Aberdeen was basically like when you had tooth pain in Aberdeen, you went to the local old lady who knew kind of witchy stuff and she slapped some stuff on your tooth. And so, you know, I think it really speaks to the respect we once had for community elders and their wisdom

that people were like, the tooth lady says we need to put cow poop on it. I don't know. That's what we're doing. Yet again, another example of like how grateful I am to live in like modern times with like sterility techniques and you know just like yeah infection control yeah yeah no it's it's nice to to be reminded that despite the horrors there are many many things we are able to simply not do because we're alive today like getting cow dung put on our on our teeth so and yeah there's as for more basic oral hygiene there's there's loads of interesting stuff you know of that variety if you go way back. So there are a bunch of Sumerian, Babylonian, and Assyrian texts in cuneiform.

There's one collection from 700 BC, but it seems like a lot of those are copies of earlier work, so some of this stuff was likely being used earlier. Like 100 prescriptions for various tooth ailments are in this cuneiform. And a lot of it was sort of botanical and mineral-based. They cared a lot about alleviating bad breath. There were various mouthwashes. They, you know, had advice on how to clean your teeth. There's also a book of the book of classic internal medicine,

which was a Chinese text that's generally thought to be from around 2,700 BC, has a lot of stuff about toothache and periodontal disease. Similarly, there are Sanskrit texts from around 1,500. BC that talk about treating oral hygiene issues, chewing things that we now know have antibacterial and anti-inflammatory properties. You've talked about that. Are you like, right? Your parents are the stick?

Something about. No, no. I was talking about tongue cleaners. Oh, oh, tongue cleaners. Okay. So that's not an ancient Sanskrit technique. They did definitely. they were very concerned about

tongue hygiene as well and that was also true in China and because you know that is a great way to make sure your breath is not smelly yeah we talked about it on our show I can't remember what the consensus was but tongue cleaners I can't remember but we we talk about it on the show

about like do they actually help with bad breath bad breath yeah I'll have to check it out because as soon as I said it I was like do they Is it a good way to keep your breath from being smelly? I don't know. But now I'll have to go listen to the episode. Yeah, just listen to the episode. And yeah, there's, okay, so my last tooth thing for the day is that there's this new study that's arguing that drilling cavities, you know, going after that toothworm might be so old that Neanderthals actually did it.

So this is tough to study, not. Yeah. For many reasons, including because. is Neanderthals eat very low-carb diets, so they had very few cavities. You know, obviously we know that refined sugar is a big one when it comes to getting cavities, which is why the French, you know, we're really really having a bad time tooth-wise. But, you know, before you get refined sugar, we see cavities start to emerge as diets are carb-heavy. So this 59,000-year-old molar found in Siberia was very interesting to researchers

because it had a very suspicious hole looked like a pretty decayed tooth and had like a pretty round hole on the top. So they did like some microscopic analysis. They saw signs of severe tooth decay and signs that sort of where there had been tooth decay below the gun line, gum line, somebody had been kind of like picking at it.

They also did experiments on three modern teeth with like different tools to try to figure out what sort of tools and movements could have made the hole they were seeing. And they've come out saying, that the twisting motion of a small tool made out of Jasper, which would have been available locally at that time, you know, would have made this hole.

And so, you know, could it be that somebody, whether it was the individual themselves or a friend with a rock, you know, drilled at this tooth? We can't be sure. We do know that whatever made the hole, they persisted in using the tooth afterwards. There are basically chew marks on top of the grooves that indicate, you know, the cavity forming and being messed with. So scientists, of course, can't be sure that a stone dental drill was at play here.

I saw some outside experts, you know, people who weren't involved in the study, but who study this kind of stuff being very excited about it, some being more skeptical. And the truth is we just can't know. We do see other things that look like people sort of drilling cavities, not this old, but around like 15,000 years ago. But we just don't have enough physical evidence to, you know, solidly make the case until we get closer to the modern era. It's really interesting to me though, because it makes me think of trepination, which we know people were doing 10,000 years ago. So like literally drilling holes in the head to try to relieve. headaches or for other reasons, you know, maybe they just thought it was fun. But we know that they did it and that people survived it. So to me, it like isn't such a crazy stretch to think that if you

felt like your tooth was going to explode, you might, you might make a hole in it. I don't know. So like I said, we can't be sure, but it doesn't seem so far-fetched to me. And I think there are a lot of experts not involved in the study who are sort of have the same vibe. We're like, yeah, we can't know for sure, but like, maybe, maybe. So, you know, some, some researchers are going to be on the lookout for more evidence of Neanderthal dentistry, and I'll be, I'll be waiting eagerly to hear. I'm pretty sure there's a dentist down the street in this practice is called Neanderthal Dentistry. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing. I mean, this guy seems to have done well with the tools available.

He lived at you another day. Just one other day. And then he passed. Well, thank you guys so much for coming on. It's been so great to be here. Super fun. Thank you. Thank you.

Would you remind our listeners what your show is called? And then also maybe, you know, what are the episodes that you would recommend for folks jumping in for the first time? Sure. Yeah. So our show is called Health Stuff. We drop new episodes every Wednesday, wherever you get your podcasts. And I would say actually our most popular episode, as far as I can tell right now, is the one that just dropped this past week on sleep. And we had a sleep expert talk to us about insomnia and ways that you can sleep better. And the things not to do. in bed. So that's been really actually popular this week. Yeah. And we have an episode coming out about earwax, which I referenced earlier, which I think was a very useful episode. It was because I feel, because we all, not we all, but many of us misuse our Q-tips. And it's really, it's really about that. So. Awesome. The weirdest thing I learned this week is produced by all of our

hosts, including me, Rachel Faltman, along with Jess Bodie, who also serves as our audio engineer and editor extraordinaire. Our theme music is by Billy Cadden. Our logo is by Katie Belloff. If you have questions, suggestions, or weird stories to share, tweet us at Weirdest underscore Sing. Thanks for listening, Weirdos.