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sterlingphoenix t1_it9ul75 wrote

Have... have you ever tasted soap?

Also, soap -- regular soap -- doesn't kill germs. It just removes them. The same thing toothpaste does. We basically already have something that works.

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M8asonmiller t1_it9vzjq wrote

It does kill germs, but it's not abrasive enough to lift off plaque. A long time ago toothpaste used to be made out of ground-up bricks for tooth-scraping power.

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greatvaluemeeseeks t1_it9yr77 wrote

Soap by itself doesn't kill all germs. Cell membranes are made from a phospholipid bilayer. They are made from a molecule with one end attracted to water and one end attracted to oil. The molecules are arranged so the ends attracted to water are pointed towards each other. Soap with a little bit of agitation will rip these membranes apart, but some bacteria and viruses have a hard protein layer that protects them.

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ScienceIsSexy420 t1_it9xljr wrote

Soap, regular soap, will indeed kill most germs, but not all of them. It removes all germs, those it kills and those it cannot kill, but it absolutely positively can kill the majority of germs. Source: my degree in biochemistry

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wolf_metallo OP t1_itc2og8 wrote

I get that, but wondering why Dental germs are so hardy? Like you wash hands and they are clean enough, but once you have a cavity on tooth, only way forward is to drill and remove the germs/plauqe etc.

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sterlingphoenix t1_itc7d2e wrote

I mean, you can get 100% rid of them, but they'll just come back. Or rather new ones will. Once they've managed to get through the enamel, everything else is relatively soft so you want to plug that up ASAP.

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