A Cure for Deafness? I'm all Ears!

Photo credit: Jeroen Flickr

Great news for all you boomers with 'rock and roll deafness'. A recent BBC News headline reads "Deaf gerbils 'hear again' after stem cell cure".  The study, first reported in Nature, used chemically charged human embryo stem cells to create spiral ganglion neurons (the nerve cells which, when damaged, account for about 10% of human hearing loss). If they could replicate these results in humans it "would mean going from being so deaf that you wouldn't be able to hear a lorry or truck in the street to the point where you would be able to hear a conversation." Wowser.

Not as cute as fitting gerbils with teeny tiny hearing aids, but far more hopeful.

 "Don't cry, Jane, we've been through worse."

Labor Day was late that year.  So on a sunny Thursday three years ago Joan hopped into her car with a list.  The usual errands (post office; recycling) and some extras, a school entrance interview for her grandson Leo and for herself, a doctor's visit. (Before she'd moved her doctor'd said, "Joan, when you get to Virginia, find yourself a smart young internist.)  She arrived on time, leaving 14 year old Leo in the car to amuse his cousin, 15 month old  Owen. 90 minutes later Joan left in an ambulance, with a diagnosis of advanced pancreatic cancer and ten days to live.