Stem Cells Turn Hearing Back On 101
puddingebola sends this excerpt from an article at ScienceNow:
"Scientists have enabled deaf gerbils to hear again — with the help of transplanted cells that develop into nerves that can transmit auditory information from the ears to the brain. The advance, reported today in Nature, could be the basis for a therapy to treat various kinds of hearing loss. ... Rivolta and his colleagues knew that during embryonic development, a handful of proteins, including fibroblast growth factor (FGF) 3 and 10, are required for ears to form. So they exposed human embryonic stem cells to FGF3 and FGF10. Multiple types of cells formed, including precursor inner-ear hair cells, but they were also able to identify and isolate the cells beginning to differentiate into the desired spiral ganglion neurons. Then, they implanted the neuron precursor cells into the ears of gerbils with damaged ear neurons and followed the animals for 10 weeks. The function of the neurons was restored.'"
Re:Those amazing stem cells (Score:0, Insightful)
I think you are confusing what businesses want and gullible people think invisible sky fairies want.
Hair Cells (Score:3, Insightful)
I need to get the ones on my head to regrow.
Re:Deaf community will hate this (Score:2, Insightful)
That is probably an acceptance measure. If you do not accept who you are you will become depressed.
I would bet cold hard cash if there was a machine that cured blindness or deafness in under 30 mins there would be a line out the door. Oh sure there would be those who didnt want it. But I would not bet against a line out the door...
In fact in your list they 'heavily rely on technology'. Meaning they are after ways to communicate. 'show up early to get a good view', etc ,etc etc...
Re:Deaf community will hate this (Score:5, Insightful)
I lost hearing in my right ear several years ago from sudden hearing loss. I'd give almost anything to get it back. I have tinnitus in that ear so bad it almost hurts sometimes. Plus you have no idea how frustrating it is to hear a sound and NOT be able to tell where it came from. PLEASE fix it!
Re:Deaf community will hate this (Score:5, Insightful)
FUND THIS SHIT. (Score:4, Insightful)
Seriously, just fucking fund it already. Fuck the religious ones that want to live in the dark ages, this is SCIENCE and if it can make deaf kids hear and blind kids see, then fuck whatever piece of paper says it's immoral and fuck the assholes that try to stop it.
Re:Deaf community will hate this (Score:4, Insightful)
Many in the deaf community are against technologies that restore hearing.... Deafness is not generally considered a condition that needs to be fixed.
Well bully for them. What about the 'few' that would like their hearing back? Tell them to quit being babies and live with it? Nobody is going to force this on those who don't want it, so at least make it an option for those who do.
Re:Deaf community will hate this (Score:5, Insightful)
Those people have a right to their ignorant opinion. But no collective has a right to dictate the destiny of an individual.
It is certainly better to hear than not to hear, without a question. Moreover, I would welcome the ability to, say, see infrared or ultraviolet, or to sense the direction of a magnetic field in which I am immersed. I only have a positive attitude toward not having these abilities, because (most?) other people also don't have them.
Re:Deaf community will hate this (Score:5, Insightful)
Virgil is an anecdote. We have no access to a parallel universe in which a "control Virgil" lives who hasn't had his sight restored. Maybe that Virgil would have lost the will to live anyway. Virgil died of pneumonia only four months after the surgery. So all that we know about his experience is confined to a few weeks or months following the restoration of sight, not how he would have coped in the long run.
Re:Deaf community will hate this (Score:4, Insightful)
who can argue that it's not a disadvantage?
The deaf, apparently. We live in a world of noise, and hearing is a sense that you can never turn off, so sometimes being deaf is a big plus.
But mostly, this is the whole deaf culture thing. Consider that the main drawback to their disability is that it hinders communication with non-deaf, non-signing people. (That's why they need TTY, CC, etc.) Among themselves, the disability has very little practical impact (unlike, for instance, blind people), especially if you were born that way and it's all you've ever known. And of course, like all communities, the deaf have developed norms and conventions for interactions that are specialized to their unique situation.
Got the picture so far? Now imagine you're deaf and your social circle is deaf and you frequently have to venture out into society at large where interaction with the others is always difficult and frequently gets you strange looks, unsolicited pity, and subhuman regard. The insurance guy down-talks you (as if your IQ was 70), and you get tried of folks repeatedly trying to communicate with you by SHOUTING LOUDER or talking reeeaa-aaaallll slo-wwww-lllley when all they need to do is talk straight and use a little common sense [illinoisle...vocate.org]. Do you see what's happening here? Interacting with your deaf peers is clearly "normal" and comfortable. The problem is with the world-at-large.
Finally, that world-at-large comes to your door and wants to "fix" poor, miserable little you. Or worse, they want to "fix" your newborn child: do surgery on their head so they won't have to live with the same "disability" you do. Let that child grow up as one of the others such that there will always, always be that extra rift between you and your offspring. And what, over the long haul, will these "fixes" do to your community but choke it out and make it disappear?
That is very, very threatening.
Re:Those amazing stem cells (Score:5, Insightful)
Wake me when the do this with non-Embryonic stem cells. I don't have an embryonic me lying around on ice to harvest.