Achievement

Former IGERT student (Constantino), working together with IGERT faculty (Lucas and Wood), have discovered how tooth enamel fractures when teeth are used to bite on the type of hard object that our ancestors were most likely eating. The results showed that the type of teeth our ancestors have would have allowed them to cope with the abrasion that comes from chewing on small hard objects, and would have protected them from the enamel cracking that comes from chewing on large hard objects. This study was published as part of an invited review in Bioessays, Bioessays, 2008, 30: 374-285.