Oral Healing: Don’t Hold Back On The Slime! Slugs Are The Answer To It
It’s just that it seems churlish to denigrate the one without the house, given the current state of the property market. Disgusting, all of it – and that’s not the gastropods. It’s an entirely avoidable situation when houses are considered private spaces in which people and families live and create communities, instead of flippable assets with flipping mind-blowing prices.
Avarice has an ordinary address in Sydney and it’s well over $1.65 million.
In this corpulent cat capitalist world money begets money. Currently in Australia, there are 172 people who own a minimum of 20 properties. Large investment portfolios are the dinner conversation of around another 2500 people who presently own, or part own 10 or more. It doesn’t sound like a lot, but it’s illustrative of the pervading aspirational idea that too many properties are never enough.
Almost exactly a century ago (4 May, 1909) Winston Spencer Churchill nailed it in a speech made at the House of Commons which he again delivered in July of the same year, at the King’s Theatre Edinburgh. In it, he said, “It is quite true that land monopoly is not the only monopoly which exists, but it is by far the greatest of monopolies – it is a perpetual monopoly, and it is the mother of all other forms of monopoly. It is quite true that unearned increments in land are not the only form of unearned or undeserved profit which individuals are able to secure; but it is the principal form of unearned increment which is derived from processes which are not merely not beneficial, but which are positively detrimental to the general public.
Land which is a necessity of human existence, which is the original source of all wealth, which is strictly limited in extent, which is fixed in geographical position. Land, I say, differs from all other forms of proper in these primary and fundamental conditions …
Nothing is more amusing than to watch the efforts of our monopolist opponents to prove that other forms of property and increment are exactly the same and are similar in all respects to the unearned increment in land…”
Entitled “The Menace of Land Monopoly” you could have heard it from the great statesman’s mouth up close and personal for the princely sum of two pence – the same price as 7lbs of spuds. That last quoted paragraph is what continues to make negative gearing in Australia a hotter topic than one of those 1909 baked potatoes.
Given the verdict by prominent historians, academics, politicians and commentators as the greatest British Prime Minister of the 20th century, Winston Churchill was not without his paradoxes – notwithstanding being a keen bricklayer, and a gifted and prolific writer.
Greatly supportive of trade unionism while expressing a vehement opposition to socialism, (which he viewed as the “equal sharing of misery”) Churchill believed in free markets and individual liberty.
Maybe he didn’t realise how many of those would be taken by so few, in the 21st century.
While it’s not a sluggish market in property, it certainly is in dental medicine.Undoubtedly in no way influenced by the unhoused in the housing market, it’s interesting to note that science is at the moment studying slugs, not snails.
The Mooney Lab of the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences specialises in understanding molecular and cellular biology in the design of biomaterials. In collaboration with another Harvard faculty, the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering – with its focus on the principles of nature in healthcare and environmental resolutions – the terrestrial ‘stomach foot’ is in their sights. Which is what we’d be calling them were we swanning around in a chiton and himation 3,000 years ago.
Curiously, the ancient Greeks had no words for “land seller”, “house seller” or “seller of real estate” so we wouldn’t have been talking about any of that; but we could talk about how many kοχλίας we’d eaten that day. Yum.
A resilient adhesive patch was successfully created in 2017, composed of a natural polymer found in algae. Proving a useful wound-sealing biomaterial in lab conditions, testings over the last eight years mean its market availability is imminent.
Under the guidance of David Tiansui Wu, DMSc and postdoctorate fellow Benjamin Freedman, an intra-oral dressing has been developed. Its strong attachment ability to wet and dynamic surfaces has this adhesive hydrogel patch perfect for intra-oral treatments and wound care.
Preclinical testing and expansion of its functionality with medicine-release capabilities enable this biologically derived hydrogel to deliver a range of prescriptions for gum, tooth and craniofacial issues.
To further validate the oral applications for this technology, they worked in parallel with faculty collaborators at the Massachusetts General Hospital: Fernando Guastaldi from the department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery; and Yakir Levin, of Dermatology.
Current treatments for chronic inflammatory conditions and recurrent canker sores that negatively affect quality of life, are often ineffective and are reduced to predominantly palliative. This remedial inefficiency is largely due to the previous impossibility of adequate length of contact with the medication.
So you can see how slugs have slipped in to bridge that gap.
With an ultimate vision to develop sutureless surgical healing, the presently developed product, branded ‘DenTAl ‘ (Dental Tough Adhesive) has very positive implications for periodontics and oral operations. It’s a game-changing healing sealant for dental extractions, bone augmentation and gum graft sites, as well as a time-extended medication applicator.
This breakthrough technology translates oral treatments into another language. A similar Dural Tough Adhesive (DTA) to patch brain membrane is the result of an Ohio State University research team, intrigued and inspired by the Dusky Arion slug.
All that awaits DenTAI is a license for continued development from the usual regulatory authorities.
Unlike the amazing, ancient creature that produces a mixture of mucus and proteins used therapeutically by many cultures over thousands of years, DenTAI has legs.
You can bet your house on this hydrogel shortly transforming the landscape of dental health.
On second thought, you may not have a house to bet on. If you do, keep it in the family. Nurture yourself in it. That’s what’s priceless; not the rackin’ up realo rort. That’s slimy. And not in the good way science is working on.
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