If you are over 40, living in the UAE and have false teeth or getting there because of periodontal disease, you still have a reason to smile.

Japanese scientists from the University of Tokyo have used bioengineering techniques to grow new teeth in a lab dish and have transplanted them successfully in mice since February 2007.

They have used organ germ culture to ensure that mice teeth will never decay.

As a young woman I was always keen on the idea that “equal rights for all” was to mean exactly that…unqualified… sans spin. Even when I was disappointed with the inequalities in the world around me I did not believe “some are more equal than others”.

Times happily changed and I saw poor men become rich, women lead space voyages and the lowly defeated find achievement.

Please understand that I am a human being who rejoices in the time and space that I was born, raised and am living in.

I remember being fourteen, in high school and confused. I thought I knew it all but knew nothing. All I had going for me was my passion for books and in my dreamy messy world there came an angel: my ninth grade homeroom teacher.

Sister Prisca was a petite, soft-spoken nun with the heart of a lion. I argued with her, I questioned her faith and sometimes said the most unforgivable things without being foul-mouthed.

She absorbed it all and taught me prudence. Further she honed my critical thinking skills, instilled in me a discipline of the mind, guided my study methods and took me through the final years of high school as if it were a Chopin waltz.

There is a man who lives in my building who has ECD. Elevator Compulsive Disorder. He makes the same joke every time I get into a lift with him.

It has happened about a dozen times now. Each time it’s the same. We get in, I press my button for the fifth floor, and then he begins his routine.

“Where shall I go today?” he will ask. After moving his finger up and down the buttons he always opts for the sixth floor. Every single time. “Why don’t I try the mysterious number six?” he says.