Gene therapy gives deaf children hope for hearing and healing
A stunning scientific discovery is taking place in the heart of Dongguan, China, bringing new hope to deaf kids and their families. Yiyi, a six-year-old child who was born completely deaf, is at the heart of this transformative story. Yiyi's world was silent only a few months ago, and she had to Read More...
Can you hear me now? Experts are working out how to regenerate lost hearing
Researchers at Harvard Medical School (HMS) have developed what they believe to be a game-changing cure for hearing loss: a new combination of drug-like molecules that can rebuild the hair cells in the inner ear that permit hearing. Reprogramming genetic pathways in the inner ear allowed the Read More...
Could crocodiles help defeat hearing loss?
Around 1.5 billion people worldwide live with impaired hearing, this can create significant problems for these individuals and often reduce the perceived quality of life. The most common cause of these impairments is damage to non-regenerative receptors called hair cells. Many innovations are being Read More...
Study: Spiders use their webs to hear
The Optimist Daily recently reported on how spiders use electricity to fly by hopping on electric fields for a ride. If you ask us, that’s pretty cool. Now we wanted to share a new study, from Binghamton University, that has revealed more intriguing secrets about these eight-legged Read More...
Meet Jonathan, the world's oldest tortoise
At The Optimist Daily we love telling you about incredible happenings from around the world, both human and animal focussed. At the start of 2022, we reported on one of these remarkable events, when the world’s oldest person turned 119. This time, the story is similar but in another organism, Read More...
This novel hearing aid works like a contact lens for the ears
Although hearing aids can be helpful at improving auditory sensations in people with hearing problems, most of these devices use a tiny speaker that channels sound down the ear canal — this often means that the technology tends to amplify all sounds, including gusts of wind that may blow into the Read More...