Columbus Science Pub Presents: Secrets of the Tooth Fairy: What Your Baby Teeth Are Really Worth

Kaita Gurian takes the stage at Up Front at Shadowbox Live on Thursday, November 5, for a Columbus Science Pub talk titled Secrets of the Tooth Fairy: What Your Baby Teeth Are Really Worth. Gurian is a sixth-year PhD candidate in biological anthropology at The Ohio State University, and the whole evening is built around a premise most of us only know as a childhood story: that baby teeth are worth something. In this case, the value isn't in coins under a pillow, but in the biological record they leave behind.

The core of the talk is a simple, striking fact: unlike bone, teeth don't heal. That means they permanently record illness, stress, and hunger, and they even mark the day you were born. Under a microscope, those records show up as daily growth lines. Gurian's own research focuses on what those lines can tell us about stress and development before and around birth. Her dissertation uses microscopic and digital imaging of baby teeth from a Boston-area clinical study to investigate how maternal health and stress during pregnancy leave a permanent record in children's dental hard tissues.

It's not all modern clinical work, though. The talk also draws on teeth from archaeological sites to reveal the diets, health, and origins of people who died thousands of years ago. Between the two, she connects the tiny, daily growth lines of a newborn to the broader life stories of people from the distant past.

Up Front at Shadowbox Live is a curated 100-seat cabaret-style room in the Brewery District that hosts comedy, music, theatre, dance, and science talks, and it's fully equipped for this with house PA, lighting, a projector, and a screen. The talk starts at 7 PM, with doors opening at 6 PM. Tickets are $8 per seat, though there's a suggested donation of $8 that drops to $4 if you use the code 'getnerdy'. It's at 503 S Front St in the Brewery District.