Nanobrush, or a variety of other names ("Nanorine", "Freshmakers", "Dental Nanos", etc) is a form of dental hygiene nanotech which is currently hitting a huge fad on Extropia. These devices were briefly memetic in some Anarchist habitats, but with no capital system to drive "sales", they've settled into an occasional niche from the fabricator, and have not yet bled into the Planetary Consortium or rest of the Inner System due to the fact that some people have valid concerns over sticking scrubbing nanobots in your mouth just to clean your teeth. Similar in direction to Cleaner nanoswarms, these units are usually sold in small bottles which double as low-power hives, and come in the form of small white tablets similar to old fashioned "gum".
When activated (by biting the outer biodegradable shell) a small cluster of the nanites floods the mouth, and selectively eliminates non-human (or from a broader selection in the case of newer "uplift friendly" products) elements in the mouth, including hostile bacterium, food particles, and other artificial stains and blemishes. After working for about 60 to 90 seconds to break down these (though a particularly bad mouth might take several minutes), the nanites go inert and are naturally broken down by the enzymes in the mouth. This should eliminate most "bad breath", visible discoloration and prevent actual dental damage - though classic infections are rendered moot by most Basic Biomods. In fact, dental hygiene is now a routine with reduced necessity, similar to physical fitness. Basic Biomods removes many conventional health risks, and bodysculpting or clean metabolisms can remove social problems caused by poor dentistry for a fairly low cost. On top of this, the "space toothbrush" is a technology which has been fairly well optimized for some time and thus is incredibly cheap. This makes the "Nanobrush" a very fad item, sold purely on novelty and convenience.
In addition to standard and aforementioned "uplift friendly" packages, some have jumped on with many variants to the standard model: most common are those which produce specific tastes or scents while they work, but there are also mapping nanobrushes which provide mesh data to look for serious damage in the mouth, or "restorative" nanos which will actually replace small amounts of tooth enamel when used. The IP laws on Extropia make "remixing" or other variations on the concept very common - especially when trying to exceed the marketing of others.
Plot Hooks:
- Nanobrushes are actually completely harmless - but their initial manufacturers are very shady people trying to go "legit", thus tripping many alarm bells for groups like Firewall.
- A batch of nanobrushes is contaminated with spyware nanotech which tracks users location, biometric and mesh data and reports it to a concealed third party
- Nanobrushes are actually a dormant nanotoxin designed by an anti-capitalist or primitivist terrorist cell which will cause horrible side effects when triggered after lingering in the body - the creator must be found and disabled before they can send an activation signal
- A new "model" of Nanobrush has been released claiming to be "cutting edge", and is made with TITAN derived nanotech - which leads to an unfortunate situation of "Self-Replicating Nanobrushes" running rampant.
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