His wife told him their daughter, Krystara, 20, was right there, he recalled later, but at the time he couldn't hear because the blast left him briefly deaf.

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After ten years of research, David Martin, a materials scientist at the University of Michigan, came up with a polymer that could help deaf people hear and blind people see.

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Mr Gray chided Ministers for dismissing the report, noting that "there are none so deaf as those who will not hear".

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