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In Our Time

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Factual: History

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the ideas, people and events that have shaped our world.

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In Our Time: The Evolution of Teeth

11/04/2019

The Evolution of Teeth

BBC Radio 4 - In Our Time, The Evolution of Teeth

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss how teeth evolved in our toothless ancestors - and why.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss ideas about the origins of teeth, their link to hard scales on fish such as sharks and why some species regenerate theirs but humans do not.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss theories about the origins of teeth in vertebrates, and what we can learn from sharks in particular and their ancestors. Great white sharks can produce up to 100,000 teeth in their lifetimes.  For humans, it is closer to a mere 50 and most of those have to last from childhood.  Looking back half a billion years, though, the ancestors of sharks and humans had no teeth in their mouths at all, nor jaws.  They were armoured fish, sucking in their food.  The theory is that either their tooth-like scales began to appear in mouths as teeth, or some of their taste buds became harder.  If we knew more about that, and why sharks can regenerate their teeth, then we might learn how humans could grow new teeth in later lives. 

With 

Gareth Fraser
Assistant Professor in Biology at the University of Florida

Zerina Johanson
Merit Researcher in the Department of Earth Sciences at the Natural History Museum

and 

Philip Donoghue
Professor of Palaeobiology at the University of Bristol

Producer: Simon Tillotson

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