Tooth – COOPER GENERAL NEWS

I went into Netflix’s Sweet Tooth not knowing what to expect, and what I got was an adventurous, mysterious, and wild journey. The series based on the comic book of the same name by Jeff Lemire takes place in a post-apocalyptic world as a young boy named Gus, who is half-human and half deer, sets out on a quest to find his mother, and ends up finding out way more than he bargained for. Each of the eight episodes is packed with so many twists and turns that by the time the final episode rolls around, you’re left begging for more.

So, will there be a second season? Though Netflix hasn’t officially renewed the series, there’s a good chance it will have more episodes. Not only is it based on a comic book, meaning there are plenty of storylines left to explore, but within one day of its release, the show has already found its way into the Top 5 on Netflix. Plus, the fact that it’s executive produced by Robert Downey Jr. and Susan Downey probably doesn’t hurt!

In the season one finale, so many storylines come together, but there are still so many loose ends left to tie up. After Gus learns his true origins, he tries to seek refuge at The Preserve not knowing that it has actually been taken over by General Abbot and his Last Men. They eventually show up, shoot Jepperd, and capture Gus. While Gus narrowly escapes being experimented on at The Preserve, there are still so many dark uncertainties looming. Here are just a handful of questions I need answered in a second season:

How will Jepperd recover from being shot? Honestly, this was the biggest question on my mind after seeing Jepperd unconscious in the field. Though he is eventually rescued by Aimee, knowing what happens to his character in the comics, I can’t help but worry about his fate on the show.
What does Aimee have planned for The Preserve? Speaking of Aimee, what exactly does she have planned for The Preserve? She’s adamant on working with Jepperd to get her daughter back, but what kind of tricks does she have up her sleeve?
Will Bear be reunited with her sister? One of the biggest twists in the final episode is that Bear’s real name is Becky and her sister is actually Wendy, aka Aimee’s adopted daughter who has been captured by The Preserve. Something tells me we’re in for a big family reunion in season two.
What’s General Abbot’s deal anyways? The first season barely scratches the surface of General Abbot’s backstory. It appears that he wants the vaccine so that he can use it however he sees fit, but what are his greater plans?
Will Jepperd be reunited with his son? In one of the final episodes, we learn that Jepperd’s wife gave birth to a son, but they were taken away shortly afterwards. We can’t help but wonder if his son is actually one of the hybrids at The Preserve with Gus.
Which side is Birdie on? In the final scene of season one, we learn that Birdie is still alive and appears to be working in Alaska to find a cure. But whose side is she on? In episode seven, we learn that Birdie stays back at Fort Smith when the military takes over the lab so that Richard can take off and save Gus. Perhaps she agrees to help them so that she can work undercover to find a cure and eventually reunite with Gus.

There’s nothing like the strange, bone-shaking reaction of a damaged tooth exposed to something cold: a bite of ice or a cold drink and suddenly that sharp, searing sensation, like a needle piercing a nerve.

Researchers have known for years that this phenomenon is due to damage to the outer protective layer of the tooth. But how the message gets from the outside of your tooth to the nerves inside has been difficult to detect. On Friday, biologists reported in Science Advances magazine that they identified an unexpected player for this painful sensation: a protein embedded in the surface of cells inside teeth. The discovery offers insight into the connection between the outside world and the inside of a tooth and could one day guide the development of treatments for toothache.

More than a decade ago, Dr. Katharina Zimmerman, now a professor at Friedrich-Alexander-Universität in Germany, discovered that cells that produce a protein called TRPC5 are sensitive to cold. When it got cold, TRPC5 opened and formed a channel for ions to flow across the cell membrane.

Ion channels like TRPC5 are distributed throughout our bodies, said Dr. Zimmerman, and they are behind some surprisingly familiar sensations. For example, if your eyes feel cold and dry in cold air, an ion channel in the cornea is activated. She wondered what other parts of the body might be using a cold receptor like TRPC5. And it occurred to her that “the most sensitive tissue in the human body can be teeth” when it comes to cold sensations.

In the protective covering of their enamel, teeth are made of a hard substance called dentin that is threaded through tiny tunnels. The heart of dentin is the soft pulp of the tooth, in which nerve cells and cells, so-called odontoblasts, that make dentin, are intertwined.

The prevailing theory of how teeth perceive cold was that changes in temperature put pressure on the fluid in dentin tunnels and somehow provoke a response in those hidden nerves. But there was little detail on how exactly that could happen and what could bridge the gap between them.

Dr. Zimmerman and her colleagues examined whether mice that lacked the TRPC5 channel still experienced toothache, as did normal mice. They were intrigued to find that when these mice damaged their teeth, they didn’t act like something was wrong. In fact, they looked something like they’d been given an anti-inflammatory pain reliever, said Dr. Zimmerman.

Your co-author Dr. Jochen Lennerz, a pathologist at Massachusetts General Hospital, examined human teeth for signs of the ion channel and found them in their nerves and other cells. This suggested that the channel might play a role in a person’s perception of cold.

Over many years, the researchers developed a method to precisely measure the nerve signals emerging from a mouse’s damaged molar. They tested their ideas with molecules that could block the activity of various channels, including TRPC5.

The picture they slowly compiled is that TRPC5 is active in the odontoblasts. That was a bit of a surprise, as these support cells are best known for making and maintaining dentin without aiding the perception. Inside the odontoblasts, said Dr. Lennerz, TRPC5 opens when the cold signal comes through the dentinal tunnel, and this causes a message to be sent to the nerves.

One substance that prevents TRPC5 from opening is eugenol, the main ingredient in clove oil, a traditional treatment for toothache. Although the US Food and Drug Administration does not clearly assess the effectiveness of eugenol, it may be due to the effects of TRPC5 in relieving pain in some people.

Perhaps knowing that this canal is at the heart of cold-induced pain will lead to better treatments for toothache in the future – better ways to keep this message from becoming overwhelming.