Live data from Hacker News

Deaf girl is cured in world first gene therapy trial

independent.co.uk

31–40 of 351 posts

Re: Deaf girl is cured in world first gene therapy trial

#31

What always interests me with stories of people hearing or seeing for the first time in their life, what is it like to gain a new sense? One would think that growing up with a sense is integral to its processing (and filtering) and the sudden introduction of a sense later in life would come with all sorts of side effects.

There is an entire class of YouTube video of the first moments that people see color, or hear, and it is absolutely, without question, the most joyous and wonderful class of video out there. Just so many happy tears.

Little kids hearing their mother's voice for the first time. Friends seeing color for the first time after being given corrective glasses as a gift.

Highly recommended watching.

Re: Deaf girl is cured in world first gene therapy trial

#32

I’m optimistic that at some point, I’ll be able to get a treatment to take care of my red green color blindness. I’m well aware that it’s very much a first world problem, and rightfully should be very low on the totem pole of medical issues to cure. But goddamnit, I want to see red.

If it makes you feel better, red is overrated.

I think it's rated pretty appropriately.

Re: Deaf girl is cured in world first gene therapy trial

#33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm deaf in one ear and 70db loss in the other, just wanted to say nobody cares what you call it as long as you aren't an asshole about it. Being pediatric helps nobody

Did you mean pedantic (annoyingly corrective) or pediatric (child(ish))?

I laughed reading that as it worked so well as a typo.

Re: Deaf girl is cured in world first gene therapy trial

#34

I’m optimistic that at some point, I’ll be able to get a treatment to take care of my red green color blindness. I’m well aware that it’s very much a first world problem, and rightfully should be very low on the totem pole of medical issues to cure. But goddamnit, I want to see red.

If it makes you feel better, red is overrated.

Sure. Green though? It’s the best.

You know, I’ve never thought of this: does anyone with a type of color blindness consider their “favorite color” to be the ones they can’t distinguish?

Re: Deaf girl is cured in world first gene therapy trial

#35
My Mom was born with less than half of her hearing in left ear and barely anything at all in right ear. She had surgery as an adult and it slightly improved, especially on the right side.

Pretty sure this little girl and my Mom don't share the same disability at all but she saw these news today and texted me so excited because future kids won't have to endure the same.

Brings tears to my eyes, I'm so grateful for modern medicine and its stupendous advances.

Re: Deaf girl is cured in world first gene therapy trial

#37
Yuval Harari makes an interesting point in one of his books: that many kinds of these inventions always start as a way to treat people with some kind of a medical condition and bring them into the "median" spectrum, but there's no stopping there and the same inventions are then used to bring "median" people into the "super-human" spectrum.

What happens next is that the "regular" humans have to compete with these "super-humans", for example on a job market, or in Olympics.

Re: Deaf girl is cured in world first gene therapy trial

#38

[flagged]

I used to live in Texas near the biggest deaf school in the U.S. From my understanding, some people in the deaf community do consider the word "cured" to be offensive because they don't consider their condition to be a disease. I don't know if that's the dominant view and preference, but if that's the case, perhaps we should all learn to respect their culture, as much as we're all learning to respect (up to some poin…

this is great thinking. to me, the line to be drawn has a lot to do with lived experience. talking about deafness involved lots of people who live their entire lives affected by deafness, while discussing evolution affects peoples spiritual beliefs, which i see as largely a personal (if cultural) choice.

Re: Deaf girl is cured in world first gene therapy trial

#39

I’m optimistic that at some point, I’ll be able to get a treatment to take care of my red green color blindness. I’m well aware that it’s very much a first world problem, and rightfully should be very low on the totem pole of medical issues to cure. But goddamnit, I want to see red.

Have you tried color blindness glasses (e.g. EnChroma)? I am not familiar with them but some reaction videos were pretty heartwarming.

Re: Deaf girl is cured in world first gene therapy trial

#40
post #37

Yuval Harari makes an interesting point in one of his books: that many kinds of these inventions always start as a way to treat people with some kind of a medical condition and bring them into the "median" spectrum, but there's no stopping there and the same inventions are then used to bring "median" people into the "super-human" spectrum. What happens next is that the "regular" humans have to compete with these "sup…

You can only switch a gene "on" once. So I'd like to see some examples.

Or do you mean more people with all their genes switched "on" so to speak?

Post reply on HN