{"id":1084,"date":"2020-03-18T17:28:31","date_gmt":"2020-03-18T17:28:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mydentalpracticeblog.com\/hudsonhighlandsdentistry\/dental-care-blog\/5-weird-and-fun-mouth-facts\/"},"modified":"2020-03-18T17:49:16","modified_gmt":"2020-03-18T17:49:16","slug":"5-weird-and-fun-mouth-facts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mydentalpracticeblog.com\/hudsonhighlandsdentistry\/dental-care-blog\/5-weird-and-fun-mouth-facts\/","title":{"rendered":"5 Weird and Fun Mouth Facts"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.mydentalpracticeblog.com\/hudsonhighlandsdentistry\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/16\/2020\/03\/fun-mouth-facts_543.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"543\" height=\"543\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-1085\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.mydentalpracticeblog.com\/hudsonhighlandsdentistry\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/16\/2020\/03\/fun-mouth-facts_543.jpg 543w, https:\/\/www.mydentalpracticeblog.com\/hudsonhighlandsdentistry\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/16\/2020\/03\/fun-mouth-facts_543-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.mydentalpracticeblog.com\/hudsonhighlandsdentistry\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/16\/2020\/03\/fun-mouth-facts_543-150x150.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 543px) 100vw, 543px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><b>HOW MUCH DO<\/b> you know about your mouth? Prepare to know a lot more, because we\u2019re about to share a bunch of strange and fascinating mouth trivia. Let\u2019s get started!<\/p>\n<h3>#1: Our sense of taste needs saliva to work!<\/h3>\n<p>We have approximately 10,000 taste buds in our mouths, most of which are on our tongues, but <strong>they can\u2019t taste anything until molecules from the food we eat dissolve in our spit<\/strong>! Only then can the chemicals be detected by receptors on taste buds.<\/p>\n<h3>#2: The bumps on the tongue are called papillae.<\/h3>\n<p>You might think that the little bumps on your tongue are your taste buds, but they\u2019re actually structures called papillae. Many taste buds are located on these papillae, along with temperature sensors, but <strong>individual taste buds are too small to see<\/strong>. Papillae give our tongues their texture, which is important for eating.<\/p>\n<p>The downside of papillae is that t<strong>he rough texture they create leaves many tiny gaps for bacteria to grow in<\/strong>, which can impact our sense of taste and give us bad breath if we aren\u2019t scraping our tongues on a daily basis.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/NLLr_5ML_Ms?rel=0\" width=\"543\" height=\"305\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h3>#3: The tongue is the only muscle that works without support from the skeleton.<\/h3>\n<p>Technically, the tongue is comprised of eight muscles, four of which are intrinsic (forming the tongue itself) and four of which are extrinsic (attaching the tongue to other structures in the mouth and throat). These muscles give the tongue an incredible range of possible movements, including shortening or lengthening, curling and uncurling, and (for some people) even rolling. <strong>Without all these movements, we\u2019d have a much harder time speaking and eating!<\/strong><\/p>\n<h3>#4: The tongue has super stamina!<\/h3>\n<p>You might have heard that the tongue is the strongest muscle in the body. While this isn\u2019t true, <strong>has your tongue ever felt tired the way your other muscles do<\/strong> after a workout? The reason the tongue doesn\u2019t get tired is that it has a lot of built-in redundancy with all those different intrinsic and extrinsic muscles working together.<\/p>\n<h3>#5: Teeth start to develop before we\u2019re born.<\/h3>\n<p><strong>Baby teeth begin to form as early as six weeks into fetal development<\/strong>, and adult teeth start to form at twelve weeks. It takes many more months for baby teeth to fully form and erupt. Adult teeth take years, slowly developing as the child grows and there\u2019s more room for these new teeth.<\/p>\n<h3>Know Any Other Weird Mouth Facts?<\/h3>\n<p>As dental health professionals, mouth facts are some of our favorites, and we\u2019d love to hear any weird ones you know the next time you come in for an appointment. If you have any concerns about your teeth or gums or it\u2019s just been a while since your last dental appointment, don\u2019t hesitate to schedule a dental exam!<\/p>\n<h4>Bonus fact: we love our patients!<\/h4>\n<h6>Top image used under <span style=\"color: #2a7abd;\"><a style=\"color: #2a7abd;\" href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/share-your-work\/public-domain\/cc0\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">CC0 Public Domain license<\/a><\/span>. Image cropped and modified from original.<\/h6>\n<h6><span style=\"color: #d9d9d9;\">The content on this blog is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of qualified health providers with questions you may have regarding medical conditions.<\/span><\/h6>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><b>HOW MUCH DO<\/b> you know about your mouth? Prepare to know a lot more, because&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":1085,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[176,273,280,274,275],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-1084","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","category-dental-posts","category-endo","category-general-dental","category-pediatric","category-176","category-273","category-280","category-274","category-275","description-off"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mydentalpracticeblog.com\/hudsonhighlandsdentistry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1084"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mydentalpracticeblog.com\/hudsonhighlandsdentistry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mydentalpracticeblog.com\/hudsonhighlandsdentistry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mydentalpracticeblog.com\/hudsonhighlandsdentistry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mydentalpracticeblog.com\/hudsonhighlandsdentistry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1084"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.mydentalpracticeblog.com\/hudsonhighlandsdentistry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1084\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mydentalpracticeblog.com\/hudsonhighlandsdentistry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1085"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mydentalpracticeblog.com\/hudsonhighlandsdentistry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1084"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mydentalpracticeblog.com\/hudsonhighlandsdentistry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1084"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mydentalpracticeblog.com\/hudsonhighlandsdentistry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1084"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mydentalpracticeblog.com\/hudsonhighlandsdentistry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=1084"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}