Tooth

I was a Chernobyl baby. That is to say, I was about 14 months old when the big gasket blew, so to speak. People were advised not to eat anything growing out of the ground. As you might imagine, I was quite a bit closer to the epicenter of the horror than most of the people I know who were being born or nourished around that time, most of them in the confines of teched-up nurseries in the West. I was as exposed as all the Bulgarian children, as the East German children, etc. The prevailing winds blew the mass of the fallout slightly ot the north of us, so we were more-or-less safe. Yet when a few years ago an X-ray of my mouth revealed an extra tooth in the roof of my mouth, I was not all that surprised.

What factors cause a cell or cluster of cells in the inner lining of the mouth to become a tooth? I am interested in biology in general, but self-reference always lends an extra layer of interest. I want to know exactly what molecules may have been messed with, what morphogens misplaced, what receptors sensitized/desensitized, etc. As a future people-mechanic, this is nothing but useful knowledge. Who wouldn't want to look under the hood and tinker for a little while. Getting there might be too exhausting, but people have managed and survived. And they are, after all, people.

Cons: "...It would be nice to have a deductive argument that p from self-evident premises. Unfortunately I am unable to provide one. So I will have to rest content with the following intuitive considerations in its support: p."