This morning, the eighth edition of the Tooth Fairy Tooth Collection Campaign was presented at the National Centre for Research on Human Evolution (CENIEH), which will take place from 20 to 24 September, with the collaboration of the "la Caixa" Foundation and the Caja de Burgos Foundation, as well as the Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology (FECYT).

This initiative of the Dental Anthropology Group and the Scientific Culture and Innovation Unit (UCC+i), which began in Burgos in 2014, aims to continue increasing the collection of milk teeth of the CENIEH to carry out research in the paleoanthropological and forensic fields.

Today, this citizen science project has spread throughout Spain, although due to Covid-19, this eighth edition will take place in fewer locations, and of the ten autonomous communities there are now seven: Asturias, Andalusia, Aragon, Balearic Islands, Castile and Leon, Galicia and Madrid, which join the collection of teeth in September and November, coinciding with the European Researchers' Night and Science Week.

The institutions where the 2021 campaign will be carried out are: ADEMA University School in Palma de Mallorca, the CSIC Delegation in Galicia, La Fábrica de Luz.  Museo de la Energía de Ponferrada (León), the University of Córdoba, the University of Jaén, the University Rey Juan Carlos of Madrid, the University of Oviedo and the campuses of Huesca, Teruel and Zaragoza of the University of Zaragoza.

Appointment

All those interested in donating teeth to the collection must book an appointment in advance and collect the participation form and information about it at the CENIEH reception, from 9:00 to 20:00h.

In exchange for the teeth, donors will receive a gift and a certificate as helpers of the tooth fairy and the CENIEH Dental Anthropology Group, as well as merchandising from the Casita Museo del Ratón Pérez in Madrid.

During the press conference, the coordinators of this project, Marina Martínez de Pinillos González, researcher of the Dental Anthropology Group, and Chitina Moreno-Torres R-C, head of the UCC+i, emphasised that it is very important to indicate the exact age (years and months) that the donor had when the tooth to be donated to the collection fell out.