Deaf defying; geneticists and physiologists are disentangling the causes to deafness and beginning to glimpse ways of doing something about it.(Science and Technology)

From: The Economist (US) | Date: January 31, 1998 | Copyright information

Most causes of deafness can be traced to missing or damaged hair cells. Researchers are attempting the determine what controls the growth of hair cells and how to stimulate that growth if needed to restore hearing.

HAIR cells are tiny-about fifteen-thousandths of a millimetre long. If you are lucky, they are also abundant. An average human ear contains some 16,000 of them scattered over the surface of a snail-shaped organ called the cochlea. But if you are unlucky, and that number ...

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