The analysis of tooth shrinkages by C. Loring Brace and colleagues at the University of Michigan's Museum of Anthropology indicates that human tooth size is continuing to decrease and that the evolutionary process did not come to a halt some 30,000 yrs ago as many scientists contend. In northern Europeans, for example, tooth size reduction now has a rate of 1 percent per 1000 years. Answer the following:
a. If t represents time in years and y represents tooth size, use the condition that y = 0.99y0 when t = 1000 to find the value of k in the equation y = y0ekt Then use this value of k to answer the proceeding questions.
b. In about how many years will human teeth be 60 % of their present size?
c. What will our descendant's tooth size 26000 years from now (as a percentage of our present tooth size)?