Recently, I read an article on Reader's Digest on some of the biggest health news of the past year. Reader's Digest went out and asked many leading doctors and researchers around the world what discoveries, drugs and medical devices made them more excited. The answers they got were surprising and even I could hardly believe my eyes as I read through the article. Now, let me share with you some really interesting and astounding breakthroughs we made this year.
Recently, doctors invented an artificial heart to replace hearts of patients. It is the first ever total artificial heart that totally replaces the entire heart. Before this, ventricular assist devices were placed into the heart to help kick-start it. Now, the entire heart can be removed and can be fitted with the device. Over a thousand people had been implanted with this device and survived. At first, I did not believe it. Taking out the entire heart, and putting in an artificial one? This is totally absurd. But after reading on, I found out that many people have been treated this way and they have a "new" life. Clearly, technology has greatly advanced and people may now have an artificial heart.
Secondly, after ten years of work, a group of optometrist finally succeeded in in creating a cornea from yeast. Corneal scarring or clouding is a major cause of blindness around the world, and in many countries there is such a shortage of donated corneas that people have to wait two to three years for a transplant. In order to tackle that problem, this group of optometrists went out and invented an artificial cornea from yeast. After a clinical trial, ten patients underwent surgery and six out of ten patients' vision was comparable to conventional corneal transplantation.
Reflection
The article also mentioned many other discoveries such as using cockroaches brain to kill bacteria and virtually "printing new skin". However, I wonder: Are all these new inventions and discoveries morally correct? We humans have invented artificial corneas and hearts and are even able to heal burns faster by using a printer to "print" new skin cells. I think that is this goes on, we would soon turn ourselves into robots, with a artificial heart and other artificial body parts. We were born and made with a real heart, and yet humans are trying to act god and replace our natural heart with artificial hearts. Is that morally correct?
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