Scientists at Queen Mary, University of London have developed an online interactive tool which will enable experts to assess people's teeth and accurately estimate their age. With this tool, forensic teams across the world will be better equipped to identify the age of people who die in natural disasters.

The London Tooth Atlas is a culmination of years of research from Dr Helen Liversidge and her team at Queen Mary dedicated to dental development. The Atlas was underpinned by the need to estimate the ages of victims of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami using dental data.

The hard copy version of the London Tooth Atlas was used in a number of disasters such as the New Zealand earthquake in 2011.

'We expect the new software will revolutionise the way forensics determine the age of victims,' said Dr Liversidge.

The tool also enables experts and students to see how teeth change between the ages of 30 weeks in utero to about 23 years.

Dr Sakher AlQahtani, who works with Dr Liversidge, developed the London Tooth Atlas for his postgraduate research project.

The software is available at www.atlas.dentistry.qmul.ac.uk and a related app will follow.