Free Republic

Four children born with a rare form of deafness are now able to hear, thanks to a new gene therapy being trialed in China. In addition to helping others with the same condition, this treatment could one day lead to gene therapies for other, more common causes of deafness. The challenge: Every year, about 6,000 babies are born in the US alone with some level of permanent hearing loss. The problem, in rare instances, lies in mutations in the gene that codes for the otoferlin (OTOF) protein, which helps hair cells in the inner ear transmit sounds to the brain...

BAY COUNTY, Fla. – Two Florida women are facing battery charges after a fight escalates and one of them bites the ear off of the other, according to deputies. Bay County Sheriff’s deputies said were called to a house party thrown by unsupervised minors on July 4 after midnight. According to an arrest affidavit, Macy Regan, 23, and Dixie Stiles, 18, got into an altercation when Stiles accused Regan of stealing alcohol and vape pens. Deputies said Regan attempted to leave the house when Stiles confronted her, and Regan pulled out a gun. Deputies said Stiles pushed the gun away...

BREAKING: They just leaked a story to the @nytimes and President @JoeBiden National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan will be appearing @WhiteHouse briefing room tomorrow to defend it: NYT reporting that Biden is considering providing banned munitions to Ukraine. He will supply Ukraine with cluster munitions, disregarding international consensus not to use them because they cause severe injuries to civilians and US allies ban them. The decision carries implications for humanitarian concerns and global unity.

Poor oral health may increase the incidence of Meniere disease, according to a study. Jung-Hyun Park and colleagues examined the association between oral health and Meniere disease. Participant data were retrieved from the National Health Insurance Database of the Korean National Health Insurance Service. The analysis included 2.24 million adults undergoing oral health screening by dentists in 2003 with a median 16.7 years of follow-up. The researchers found that 5.0 percent of participants developed Meniere disease. There were significant associations observed between poor oral health status (periodontitis: adjusted hazard ratio, 1.18) and an increased number of missing teeth (≥15: adjusted...

Text from Getty Images page: TOPSHOT - US President Joe Biden attends the ceremony at the National 9/11 Memorial marking the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center, in New York, on September 11, 2021. (Photo by ED JONES / POOL / AFP) (Photo by ED JONES/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)

A 45-year-old British man has lost his hearing in one ear after catching the coronavirus – prompting experts to warn that the deadly bug may cause permanent deafness among some patients, according to reports. The man — whose only underlying medical condition was asthma — was referred to an otolaryngologist when he experienced the hearing loss after being treated for COVID-19 at a hospital, The Sun reported. His condition had deteriorated after spending about a month on a ventilator but improved when treated with remdesivir, steroids and a blood transfusion, according to the news outlet.

A group of researchers at Neuromod Devices Limited, working with an international team of researchers, reports positive results in a clinical trial set up to test a non-invasive stimulation device to treat tinnitus. In their paper published in the journal Science Translational Medicine, the group describes the science behind the device and how well it worked in clinical trial testing. Tinnitus is a condition in which a person hears phantom noises—the kind of noise and volume vary between people. The condition is bothersome because of its persistence and because it can inhibit hearing. Over the past several years, several groups...

VITAMIN B12 deficiency produces a number of eerie effects on the body and the type of symptoms you may experience depend on the underlying cause. One common warning sign associated with B12 deficiency caused by pernicious anaemia is a particular sound. Vitamin B12's impact on the body is brought into sharp relief if you become deficient in the vitamin. Vitamin B12 is a nutrient that helps keep the body’s nerve and blood cells healthy and helps make DNA, the genetic material in all cells. If the body does not get enough of the vitamin, it therefore responds in disturbing ways....

Doctors in Kansas City, Missouri, pulled a venomous brown recluse spider out of Torres' ear, and somehow, she kept her cool. But she's never sleeping without earplugs again. She woke up Wednesday morning with popping and swishing sounds in her ear. She decided to check it out after work, though she didn't think much of it at first, she said. A medical assistant examined Torres' ear, then ran out of the room to grab more sets of eyes. Soon, two nurses, three medical students and a doctor joined the assistant in the tiny exam room to break the news--a spider...

PORTLAND, Ore., Feb. 26, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Otoharmonics Corporation, a U.S. veteran-owned company offering sound therapy for tinnitus management, has been awarded a five-year Federal Supply Schedule Medical Equipment and Supply contract, making Levo available immediately to patients receiving care within the Department of Veterans Affairs, Department of Defense, Bureau of Prisons, Indian Heads Services, and Public Health Services. Compatible with the Clinical Practice Guidelines for Tinnitus published by the American Academy of Otolaryngologists and the VA's Progressive Tinnitus Management Program, the Levo System's sleep therapy has been shown to reduce the level of tinnitus intensity and improve the quality...

Tinnitus is a problem that plagues up to 15% of the American population. It's a constant ringing in the ears without a cure. The American Tinnitus Association says hearing loss induced by loud noises or age is a frequent factor but trauma, ear canal blockages, and even taking some prescription medications can cause the ringing, a ringing for which there is no cure. "I tried masking, including have to have a fan on when I went to sleep or having a machine that makes sounds like the sound of rain," said Nick Stein who suffers from tinnitus. Nick Stein says...

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) — Tinnitus affects 50 million Americans. It’s commonly called ringing in the ears, but it can bring other sounds like whooshing, hissing, whistling, buzzing and humming, and there’s no cure for the annoying, sometimes debilitating problem. But there’s now new technology that is helping alleviate the symptoms. Nick Stein says he has tried just about everything to relieve the ringing in his ears. “Having to have a fan on when I went to sleep, or having a machine that makes sounds, like the sound of rain or a burbling brook,” Stein said. So his doctor suggested he...

Last year, my husband and I purchased our first house. Lucky for us new homeowners, the house needed minimal work. [snip] Last month, in the middle of the night, I woke up startled. It felt like someone had placed a chip of ice in my left earhole—but it was something way worse. I shot up out of bed, disoriented, and stumbled to the bathroom. I could feel that my ear was not right. I grabbed a cotton swab and gently inserted it into my ear to see what was up and I felt something move. When I pulled the cotton...

Sacramento investigators tracked down East Area Rapist suspect Joseph James DeAngelo using genealogical websites that contained genetic information from a relative, the Sacramento County District Attorney's Office confirmed Thursday. The effort was part of a painstaking process that began by using DNA from one of the crime scenes from years ago and comparing it to genetic profiles available online through various websites that cater to individuals wanting to know more about their family backgrounds by accepting DNA samples, said Chief Deputy District Attorney Steve Grippi. more at link...

A closeup view of the skin-stimulating electrodes and earphones used to deliver the specially timed signals. Credit: University of Michigan ======================================================================================================================================================================= Millions of Americans hear ringing in their ears—a condition called tinnitus—but a new study shows an experimental device could help quiet the phantom sounds by targeting unruly nerve activity in the brain. In a new paper in Science Translational Medicine, a team from the University of Michigan reports the results of the first animal tests and clinical trial of the approach, including data from 20 human tinnitus patients. Based on years of scientific research into the root causes...

Photo of MDMA courtesy of Wikipedia Commons Researchers in New Zealand have started trials to see whether MDMA can treat tinnitus, a condition that causes people to hear irritating sound no one else can hear. The undertaking has taken place over the last two years, and involved a small number of participants who were given a very low dose of MDMA or a placebo and monitored over a four-hour period, reports Stuff. Many of the participants who took the MDMA reported a partial alleviation of tinnitus after three hours, but there was also a large placebo effect among the participants....

Unaffected mice, at left, have sensory hair bundles organized in 'V' formations with three rows of cilia (bottom left). This orderly structure falls apart in the mutant mice (middle column), but is dramatically restored after gene therapy treatment. Credit: Gwenaelle Géléoc and Artur Indzkykulian ======================================================================================================================= In the summer of 2015, a team at Boston Children's Hospital and Harvard Medical School reported restoring rudimentary hearing in genetically deaf mice using gene therapy. Now the Boston Children's research team reports restoring a much higher level of hearing—down to 25 decibels, the equivalent of a whisper—using an improved gene therapy vector developed at...

Warning: This post contains graphic language and snakes. Next time you're trying to convince a newly goth 17-year-old not to get their ears gauged, why not tell them tale of one Ashley Glawe, a Portland resident with ear gauges and a pet python who recently became internet famous for getting her python lodged in her earlobe. Apparently, Glawe and her pet snake Bart were just hanging out, as snakes and humans do, when Bart slithered his way through the hole in her ear. I'll wait while you scream into a bag for ten minutes. Turns out Bart was hanging out...

- Did you notice Hillary's new hairstyle? Suddenly, both ears are covered. This is the setup and prep for the debates. That women was getting instruction via a sophisticated earpiece - and she is laying the groundwork for doing it again in the debates. The lapdog Media refuses to cover it.

Cannabis indica. Credit: Wikipedia ========================================================================================================================================= Several studies have demonstrated that the primary active constituent of cannabis, delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (∆9-THC), induces transient psychosis-like effects in healthy subjects similar to those observed in schizophrenia. However, the mechanisms underlying these effects are not clear. A new study, published in the journal Biological Psychiatry, reports that ∆9-THC increases random neural activity, termed neural noise, in the brains of healthy human subjects. The findings suggest that increased neural noise may play a role in the psychosis-like effects of cannabis. "At doses roughly equivalent to half or a single joint, ∆9-THC produced psychosis-like effects and increased neural...