Does your smile say it all? Most people think so. In a recent survey, 92.4% of North Americans agreed that an attractive smile is an important social asset, and 74% thought that an unattractive smile hurts a person's chances of career success. But only half of us were satisfied with our smile!

Your smile is without doubt one of your most powerful possessions. Smiles are such an important part of communication that we recognize them far more than any other expression: we can pick up a smile at a distance of 100 yards - the length of a football field! At one time this kind of "pattern recognition" talent, as research scientists call it, was a survival skill our ancient ancestors had even before they could speak.

Before humans learned to talk, our smiles could literally mean the difference between life and death. Researchers believe that our smiles developed as a means of avoiding aggression. For instance, if your lips were pulled back to reveal all your front teeth (our ancestors were uniformly in need of braces), this would mean you were ready for a fight.

But we learned to stretch our lips sideways, and thereby partially cover our teeth to indicate a peaceful, non-aggressive greeting... and guess what? The smile was born!

Those were innocent, if dangerous, times. Today, for police officers (and poker players) there are few things worse than a cool liar with a fake smile. Smiles are so complex that a new computer system has been developed at the Salk Institute in La Jolla, California, specifically to read the rapidly changing expressions in the human face, most notably the smile. One day we may have the technology to enable us to decipher the emotions that lurk behind our smiles.

At our office, we're smile experts as well, and we can certainly help to make your smile the best it can possibly be - for you and your self-esteem. Or even for your next poker game!