New hope for hearing loss

7 04 2007

Here’s one of the best reasons ever to support stem cell research.

Researchers at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, recently

published research findings in Developmental Neuroscience which suggest new
ways of treating hearing loss. These researchers have isolated "cochlear stem
cells" located in the inner ear and already primed for development into
ear-related tissue due to their proximity to the ear and expression of certain
genes necessary for the development of hearing.

The team’s research is a major step in devising a therapy to reverse
permanent hearing loss because it may lead to the activation of cochlear stem
cells in the inner ear to regenerate new hair cells.

As a sufferer of

sensorineural hearing loss myself, this is very encouraging news. For people
that don’t know about hearing loss, it can have significant effects on a persons
ability for social interaction, which is why I don’t party much.

Millions of people worldwide suffer from this type of hearing loss, and with the blasting of Ipods in young ears becoming a fixture of society, the problem will only get worse


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Categories : Uncategorized

The adapability of man to his climate

7 04 2007

evolve.jpg

Yesterday, the IPCC Climate Change Report was released. Now the hand wringing starts. I’ve made a lot of entries on climate change here, I’ve given newspaper interviews, radio interviews, written guest columns and letters to the editor. Mostly what I got from that is loads of criticism heaped on me. Some called me unqualified to comment, others said I’m caught up in a cultural bias that stems from my political views, others say I’m just flat wrong. But few have even bothered to engage me on the topic, preferring to write about me, rather than what I’ve said.

To those whom voiced such complaints I say: “tough noogies”, I’m pressing on. But I am going to give it a rest for awhile after this entry. There’s many more interesting things I haven’t covered yet here. And I’m sure many readers would like to see some other topics. Rest assured I’m not done with the subject though. There’s a big idea brewing.

As for the IPCC report:
Here’s what we’ve got. After leaving the dark ages, and after engaging in hundreds of years of logical scientific inquiry, finding mountains of evidence that the planet’s weather is dynamic, vibrant, and above all fickle beyond certain prognostication, that there are regular up and down periods of cold and hot climate, we now turn a blind eye to that mountain of evidence and proclaim this: The world’s climate should revert to exactly as it was on February 2nd, 1886, in Punxsutawney, PA (the first groundhog day), and that we must move Heaven and Earth to make it stay that way or billions will suffer.

Of course, our ridge browed ancestors probably felt some sort of worries as they watched the Earth begin to thaw from the last ice age, and the oceans rose to cover the continental shelves and give rise to the planet-wide myths about a globe covering flood.

I’ll bet the leader of the people then uttered some sort of similar proclamation to the IPCC report such as “grunt, grunt, ooofa, mlock” and pointed his finger to the new land up north that was exposed, inviting his throng to migrate there.

Read the rest of this entry »


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Categories : climate_change