Forensic Odontolgy.

Forensic Odontology or forensic dentistry is the use of dental records to solve crimes. Like our fingerprints, our teeth are unique. There are 5 sides to a tooth believe it or not and 32 teeth so 160 surfaces in all. Throw missing teeth, fake teeth, broken teeth, malposition of teeth, malrotation of teeth, odd shaped teeth, braces, fillings, and dental diseases into the mix and you can get a big variety of teeth. Basically what they can do with this is identify who people are when their face is disformed. There needs to be identification to begin the investigation of who did it. They do this by comparing dental records to the teeth found. The more work done on the teeth the more individualistic they are. Some people actually have had their name put on their prosthetic teeth. But Comparing dental records may have its flaws, because unlike fingerprints teeth can be changed which it is sometimes contraversial in using it as evidence in court cases. The UK relies on this so much because they lack a good fingerprint database like us. Forensic Odontology is also used in age estimation and in bite mark cases. Bitemarks are also contraversial because the marks may fade or be stretched as the skin is stretched. It might just be better to use DNA from the saliva for identification. Somehow age may be estimated too and ill begin looking into that as i have decided that my presentation topic will be Forensic Anthropology.