No more need for the dentist’s drill in five years? (Plus, getting Hitler on the phone)
Of course, every generation throughout history has been saying that the human race and all its works are going to Hell in a designer handcart. Still, that little and much maligned thing called ‘progress’ does indeed come with some real advantages too.
Now me, I loathe the mobile phone and all the stupid drones using it to call people that they are now on the train, or plane, or in the shop etcetera, etcetera. On the other hand, the phone itself is a noisome but yet quite useful invention. We’re now so used to it that we can’t truly imagine its absence – but it hasn’t been with us for all that long. Consider the following, quite delightful little anecdote I read in the Times, in an article by Graham Stewart:
The telephone was more than 60 years old when the Second World War broke out. Yet the Prime Minister was only easily contactable if he stayed in the vicinity of Downing Street. Unfortunately, Neville Chamberlain preferred to spend his weekends at Chequers. The country house had only one telephone and it was there to help the kitchen staff to order supplies rather than to secure the survival of the British Empire. Whenever Hitler made a surprise move, Chamberlain had to be whisked off to the butler’s pantry.
So, yes, there is something to say for humankind’s never-ending search for new gadgets, new things that go ‘boom’ in the night and quite a lot of other stuff we get used to so fast that we forget that someone actually had to invent them – and even the most dedicated pessimist and ‘hell in a handcart’ prophet must admit that the following story is good news indeed:
The dentists’ drill could be consigned to the past. Scientists at Leeds Dental Institute have created a solution that mimics the way the body forms new teeth, which can be used to repair holes naturally without the need for drilling and filling.
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