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ARTICLESMay 20, 2011
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Well, not exactly. But in some cases, robots and automatons can be used to simulate the dental and oral problems of humans, like bad breath. Consider the case of Hanako, the Japanese dental training dummy.
According to the Syfy website Dvice, researchers at the robotics company Tmsuk teamed up with scientists from a number of Japanese Universities to create Hanako, a life-like robotic dental patient who blinks, talks, opens and closes her mouth, breaths, sneezes and even winces under excess pressure from a dental instrument.
While there is no word as to whether she can simulate halitosis, the presence of ersatz saliva is promising. In humans, all it takes to create halitosis is bacteria and saliva, though the latter must dry up a bit to make odor possible. Microbes need a mouth that isn't too wet in order to multiply. This is one reason why specialty breath fresheners that moisten the mouth work so well.
Will they work on androids with oral odor? Assuming the cause is the same, it's always possible. And who knows? Robots might need it one day. The idea has been around for a while, anyway. In Kurt Vonnegut's book Slaughterhouse-Five, a novel-within-the-novel discusses a robot "who became popular after his halitosis was cured."
