Not many people like snakes and especially big snakes. Thinking about their teeth is not somewhere most folks want to go. Yet large snakes have their dental secrets too: with python teeth strength inspiring technology. So this tale involves a brief visit to their lair. It is all for a good cause, however, to improve our health and the technological options available to us now and in the near future. Did you know that pythons have backward facing teeth, which holds their prey in place whilst swallowing it whole? Not a nice thought, granted, but it contains some useful bioengineering information.

Backward Facing Curved Python Teeth Contain Secrets

Yes, most of us would prefer to avoid these specialty snake teeth if given the choice. However, like a lot of things in nature something profound can be extracted from even the most indigestible situation. Apparently, medical researchers have long admired the ability of these python teeth to hold soft tissue without cutting through it. Indeed, some have been metaphorically salivating over the concept to put it into surgical practice.

“Over the years, mimicking these teeth for use in surgery has been a frequent topic of discussion in the lab of Dr. Stavros Thomopoulos, a professor of orthopedics and biomedical engineering at Columbia University.”
– Columbia University School of Engineering and Applied Science. “New device inspired by python teeth doubles strength of rotator cuff repairs.” ScienceDaily, 28 June 2024.

Surgeons & Snakes At The Razor’s Edge

Surgeons have been struggling to hold certain soft and slippery things in place while doing their darndest to reattach important stuff. If that boa constrictor can hold that wriggling and thrashing mammal in place whilst swallowing it there may be bioengineering gold to be mined. Big snakes consuming largish animals may well be a frightening image to consider but secrets can lie within the caverns of harsh realities. Slithering creatures pouncing upon an unsuspecting mammalian victim may not sit well with you but it is a fact of life in those parts. The dental secrets of pythons can show us stuff capable of saving lives and improving them too.

“We decided to see if we could develop a device that mimics the shape of python teeth, that would effectively grasp soft tissues without tearing, and help reduce the risk of tendon re-tearing after rotator cuff repair,” said Iden Kurtaliaj, the study’s lead author and a former biomedical engineering PhD student in the Thomopoulos’ lab.”
– Science Daily.

Some Folks Are Fanged Off With Science

Scientists are on the nose for some, with a section of society more so since the Coronavirus global pandemic. A vocal element of society was enraged to have their noses put out of joint via having some of their personal freedoms curtailed temporarily. Public health policy put some offside with their governments. Vaccinations became a lightning rod and the anti-science movement got a lift from the situation. The sovereign citizen movement garnered an influx of new members on this basis too. Basically, some folks stated that they were no longer part of the existing community and nation state – your laws do not apply to me became the mantra of these outliers. Global warming and the broad scientific agreement about this is another red flag for the anti-science trend capturing some of us at the moment. I mention this because there will be some in the polarising and widening gulf between those university educated and those not who will see learning stuff from snakes as further validation of their derision of academia. There is a cultural war occurring between progressives and those on the right. An anti-humanism push against wokeness by populist politicians. The snake, if you remember your Bible, invited Eve to eat fruit from the Tree of Knowledge. A trope for higher education, cynics might suggest

The Device Inspired By Python Teeth

“The team’s original idea was to copy the shape of python teeth, but they went much further, using simulations, 3D printing, and ex vivo experiments on cadavers to explore the relationship between tooth shape and grasping vs. cutting mechanics. Kurtaliaj manufactured a range of tooth designs, optimised individual teeth, arrays of teeth, and finally a rotator cuff-specific array of teeth. The end result was a biomimetic device, made of a biocompatible resin — an array of teeth atop a curved base — capable of grasping, not cutting, tendon. The teeth are relatively small — 3mm high for a human rotator cuff, about half the length of a standard staple – so that they won’t poke through the tendon.”
– Columbia University School of Engineering and Applied Science. “New device inspired by python teeth doubles strength of rotator cuff repairs.” ScienceDaily.

No Turning Back Time

Science seeks to learn through epistemological means via trial and error. Designs are innovated in this way until they achieve the desired outcome. In this instance the device inspired from the teeth of a python offers strength without damaging the soft substance being held. Nature still has much to teach us if we have the eyes to see. Eyes not clouded by the past and by the delusions of a supposedly once golden age. Those among us who seek to recreate the past are involved in a futile mission because none of us actually know what the past was like. It is a chimera and most often used by populists to garner political support. As Cher sang to us “If I Could Turn Back Time.” The thing is you never can and that is where the song finds its pathos.

“If I could turn back time
(Turn back time)
If I could find a way (Find a way)
Then maybe, maybe, maybe you’d stay
(Reach the stars)”
– Songwriters: Diane & Eve Warren

Alas it isn’t going to happen. Yet the device designed on the back of the inspiration of python’s teeth, however, is progress. This is going to substantially improve rotator cuff surgery outcomes for human beings. These tears affect some 17 million people in the United States annually. From out of the snake’s mouth comes scientific manna with the help of some human ingenuity.

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Note: All content and media on the Bacchus Marsh Dental House website and social media channels are created and published online for informational purposes only. It is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice and should not be relied on as health or personal advice.

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