I don't want to freak you out, but today I am really starting to think about what it means to have a cochlear implant. Yikes!
Are technologically- enhanced organisms, or "cyborgs", science fiction or reality? Think about sensory substitution and sensory addition, as studied by neuroscientist David Eagleton.
And then there are chickens... which regenerate their own damaged cilia cells! What if we could eradicate deafness in our lifetime by studying chickens and applying that technology to humans?