International

A chip in the tooth

James Randerson

Identity information stored in your mouth

London: It is the ID card you will never lose or forget to carry with you — unless your teeth fall out. Scientists have implanted an ID chip into a tooth to show how detailed personal information can be stored.

The scientists say the tooth chip will be useful to forensic scientists trying to identify bodies after natural disasters and terrorist attacks with numerous victims. It will also have advantages over a simple ID card.

"You put your ID card in your pocket, we put it in a tooth," said Patrick Thevissen, a forensic odontologist at the Catholic University of Leuvenin in Belgium. The ID chip can carry information including a person's name, nationality, date of birth and national ID code and can be read after death.

The idea came about because of the difficulty and expense of identifying victims of disasters from dental records. Trying to identify bodies after the Asian tsunami, for example, relied heavily on forensic dentists. But it was difficult and time-consuming when teeth had been damaged or when dental records were not available.

Dr. Thevissen and his colleagues told the annual meeting of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences in Seattle they had adapted an electronic identification tag, which vets injected routinely into animals.

- Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006

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