I have never much enjoyed going to the dentist’s office. The thing is that I have never even had a cavity. The worst thing I have ever had done is a bit of tooth filing and four pulled teeth before I had braces put on. I totally dread the day that that I am told I need a filling or something even worse. I know that there are people worse off than me though – people who are absolutely terrified of visiting the dentist and all that that entails.
Luckily for all of us with dentist fears there may be some help on the way. Some London researchers have developed a device that cancels out the sound of a dentist’s drill. The gadget is plugged into an MP3 player and then users plug their headphones into the device. Only high pitched noises are blocked, so patients can still hear voices and the other sounds around them.
The device uses a chip and microphone to assess the sound wave and then puts out an inverted wave that cancels out the sound. There is also no need to worry that if the sound of the drill varies it will then start coming through. The adaptive filtering technology used in the gadget ensures that once an offensive sound wave has been identified it will be continually blocked whether or not the frequency or amplitude change.
Hopefully the creators find an investor so that they can take this invention to the next step. It would certainly ease a lot of nerves and probably get a lot of people back to the dentist.
Source: Yorkshire Post, MorgueFile
