Edited by Richard Walker, Wednesday 27 May 2015 at 02:23
When I went to the dentists they told me the real name for plaque is "calculus".
'Oh, I said brightly, "that's the Latin for 'pebble'". They seemed unimpressed by my erudition.
It seems that plaque is not necessarily a disease of modern living though, and it has been found on 50,000 year old Neandertal teeth. So it's persistent stuff.
Traces of plants were found in the plaque. Read more here or see a gruesome image (plus some good information from a volunteer science writer) here.
Neandertal Calculus (No Maths Involved)
When I went to the dentists they told me the real name for plaque is "calculus".
'Oh, I said brightly, "that's the Latin for 'pebble'". They seemed unimpressed by my erudition.
It seems that plaque is not necessarily a disease of modern living though, and it has been found on 50,000 year old Neandertal teeth. So it's persistent stuff.
Traces of plants were found in the plaque. Read more here or see a gruesome image (plus some good information from a volunteer science writer) here.
Other primates also suffer.