Review: The Links at Gettysburg (Part 2)

It's time to take a look at the back nine at the Links at Gettysburg, go here to see the front.

The tenth hole is 390 yards, with the drive playing slightly uphill to a fairway guarded by a line of four bunkers right, along with O.B. in the form of houses just beyond. Houses which are very much in play if you slice, as I can attest. My drive stayed in bounds by a margin of inches, and it was quite literally in someone's yard. If you do hit the fairway, the second shot is to a wide, shallow green with a bunker behind and a pond short left, with fairway running down toward it. A golf ball probably wouldn't run the whole way down into the water if you came up short, but that's probably down to maintenance limitations. I bet, if they could, they would absolutely roll back into the pond.

The tenth hole.

Approaching the tenth green.

The tenth green.

The eleventh hole is not a long hole at 365 yards, but it's quite narrow, with the fairway squeezed between a pond left and forest right. Finding the fairway is very important, so you almost certainly do not want to use driver. The second shot is a wedge or short iron further down the hill to a green protected by sand left and right and a stream beyond. At least that's a natural water hazard, unlike the 10 ponds scattered across the back nine. No, that's not an exaggerated number. 

The eleventh hole.

Approaching the eleventh green.

The eleventh green.

The twelfth hole is 160 yards, and it's a hole every classic links has: an island par 3. Wait, no, not that. Literally no links course has a par 3 surrounded by water. Sure, you could say that the green here is large, the island is large, and there's plenty of space to not go in the water. And that's true. The water's only in play if you hit a really bad shot. In a lot of ways, that makes the problem even worse. Why bother with a silly island green if you're going to do everything to keep the water out of play? It's just there because they felt like having it, and that's a terrible reason. It's a bad idea badly executed. 

The twelfth hole. Some excellent branding in view as well.

The thirteenth hole and I have some real history. In my many years of playing junior golf tournaments, only once did I record a single-hole score in the double digits. Right here. I made an 11 here, thanks to hitting two tee shots in the water, hacking my fifth shot onto the fairway, then hooking the sixth into the water again. Also worth mentioning: I am 100% convinced they had us playing the full 7,000 yard course, because I will never forget the tee shot I had to hit that day. During this round, however, there was no tee back where we were in 2006. I was 14 years old trying to play a 455 yard par 4 with a narrow fairway squeezed between two ponds left and dense forest right. This hole was a little more doable in 2023 when it played 415 yards and could be managed with a driver and a wedge. Don't get me wrong, the hole's still terrible. But at least it was possible this time around.  

The thirteenth hole.

Approaching the thirteenth green.

The thirteenth green.

The fourteenth hole is basically a repeat of the previous hole, just longer. Pond left, trees right, narrow fairway. And it's like that for nearly 500 yards until finally opening up a little for the last 50 yards. The green is protected by three bunkers, two right, one left. It's an exercise in unfun plodding along, hit a careful drive, hit a careful second; at no point is there ever any real reward for aggressive, bold play. I guess the green's not terrible, but that hardly makes up for 530 yards of punishing boredom.

The fourteenth hole.

Approaching the fourteenth green.

The fourteenth green.

The fifteenth hole is 190 yards and big surprise, it's got a pond left and trees right. All you can really do with it is hit your mid iron carefully and hope you're accurate. In isolation, this hole is fine, it's not unreasonable by any stretch of the imagination. Not good, but fine. It's there, it's a par 3, which are about accuracy anyway. It has no place on a links-style course, but I could deal with it on other courses. But here, it's just the same thing we've seen multiple times in a row, and the water's gotten very, very old.

The fifteenth hole.

The sixteenth hole is, mercifully, open on the tee shot. A wide fairway and no ponds (unless you hit, like, the worst/shortest hook ever). No, the water on this hole is natural and comes into play on the second shot; a stream cuts in front of the green, separating it from the rest of the hole. The green is quite small and pretty heavily sloped, and also has five bunkers around the green. This would be a pretty solid green site for a short par 4, something in the 350-yard range. However, this is not a short par 4. It's 420 yards, and could play as long as 490. That's absolutely insane for a green of this size and accessibility. You have to play the aerial game here, and when you've got a mid iron in hand, you're just not going to hit this green in two very often, and the punishment for missing the green is steep. Deep bunkers, plenty of places to lose golf balls, and a hard green to putt on.

Oh, and a special thanks to the path across the stream here, which goes so far out of its way it adds like 150-200 yards to the walk. That was a lot of fun, taking 5 minutes to walk in literally the wrong direction to get to the green.

The sixteenth hole.

Approaching the sixteenth green.

The sixteenth green.

The seventeenth hole is a long par 4, playing 450 yards. Once again, there's a pond left, and while the right side is slightly more open than some of the previous holes, there's still long grass lurking. There's an advantage to playing down the left side, as it does give you a better angle into the green, but there's a couple problems with this. For one, the hole bends right, so playing to the outside of the dogleg makes a long hole even longer. Also, you can't see the water from the tee, so you're completely guessing on how far you can go before you end up getting wet. Blind water hazards are so much fun. The green is quite large and slightly elevated, and hidden behind a big bunker.

The seventeenth hole.

Approaching the seventeenth green.

The seventeenth green.

The eighteenth hole is a short par 5 at just 480 yards, which would lead you to believe it should be a solid birdie opportunity. But don't forget, this is the Links of Gettysburg, and this hole uses water as generously as other courses use bunkers. There's water all the way down the left side, and bunkers, tall grass, and housing right, which makes hitting driver extremely uncomfortable. And if you don't hit driver, that essentially takes the green out of play, since it's also got sand and water close by (not to mention those oh-so-stylish red wall cliffs). Of course, there's also no good place to lay up either, since water runs down the right side of the fairway from 200 yards out from the green to essentially greenside. Basically, what we've got here is a risk/reward par 5 with all risk and very little reward. And this is coming from someone who hit literally two perfect shots and made eagle. I could play this hole 100 times and I wouldn't come close to that again. I got so incredibly lucky, especially on the drive, since I forgot about the pond right, out past the corner of the dogleg. I could have hit just as solid a drive and been punished for it had I aimed 10 yards further right. So yeah, a terrible hole, but an appropriate way to finish, I suppose.

The eighteenth hole. That house to the right has to get hit with so many golf balls.

Approaching the eighteenth green. The red rock walls make their triumphant return.

The eighteenth green.

And now for the million dollar question: Is the Links at Gettysburg still the worst golf course I've ever played?

Yes. 

Don't get me wrong, I've played some pretty bad courses over the years. Greencastle, Maryland National, Heritage Hills, and the back nine at Glen Mills in particular stand out. Just like the Links at Gettysburg, those courses have significant routing and design issues. They stick holes where they shouldn't go. Holes are often way too narrow, giving the golfer no sense of freedom. The bad holes at Glen Mills especially stand out as being nearly as bad as the worst Gettysburg has to offer.

Crucially though, all of those courses have one thing going for them that this course does not: They respect their environment. What does that mean? It means they look like a golf course in this part of the country should. The Links at Gettysburg does not look like a golf course in the rolling hills of southern Pennsylvania. It looks like something you'd find in Florida or Myrtle Beach, what with the double-digit ponds scattered around. Pennsylvania doesn't look like this. The course is just wrong, it doesn't belong here. The place oozes insincerity.

Also, and this is something I forgot, the course is actively spiteful toward walkers. You can walk the course, and on paper it shouldn't be very difficult. There's some hills on the front, but the back is basically dead flat. The walks between greens and tees don't look too bad from above. On the ground, however, you realize that the paths take you on the most roundabout, convoluted routes imaginable, adding so many extra steps to the journey. The trek to get to the sixteenth green from the fairway is especially heinous. And there's little to no reason for it. They just assumed everyone would take a cart, and I have no patience for courses like this. Golf is meant to be a walking game, and the Links at Gettysburg spits in the face of that.

I could go on, but I think I've ranted enough. Avoid this course, no matter the cost. Like, even if someone offered me a free round here, I'd pass. Literally never again.

Beer of the Week

The beer: A Pleasant Country

The brewery: Brookeville Beer Farm, Brookeville, Maryland

Description (from Untappd and the can): "Sagamore rye barrel aged Belgian double with Marciano cherries added in the ferment. ... Bourbon and cherry ride an oaken vanilla swirl. Notes of raisin and fig compote."

Would I buy it again? This is a very good beer, and I do enjoy it quite a lot. You can taste the cherry and definitely taste the vanilla. But these barrel-aged beers are rarely easy to drink, and this is no exception. I would buy this again, but it's too heavy and thick to be anything more than an occasional treat.

CAR T Could Be The Hero Of Tomorrow ... Or The Villain

If you're a hematologist or oncologist, chimeric antigen receptor T cells have been a source of wonder and relief. While it's still early days for CAR-T treatment, which was first approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 2017, over 10,000 people with blood cancer have been treated with CAR-T drugs, and hematologists tend to think of CAR-T as a game-changer.

We'll circle back to that in a minute, but first, there's been an interesting bit of news regarding CAR-T from a group of researchers in New York. These researchers are seeking an answer to a fairly simple question: What if we didn't have to age? No biggie, right? 

To be more accurate, what the researchers were actually investigating is senescent cells – old cells that no longer replicate which build up in the body over time, causing damage and harmful inflammation wherever they go. While not the only source of aging and human maladies, senescent cells certainly contribute heavily to the wear and tear our bodies suffer as we get older.

We already have drugs that can eliminate senescent cells, but as the researchers noted, these treatments require constant transfusions. But when they tested CAR T cells in mice after modifying them to target senescent cells, they discovered that the mice lived permanently healthier lives after just one treatment. Lower body weight, improved metabolism, increased physical activity, and best of all, this happened without causing tissue damage or toxicity. Older mice were rejuvenated and refreshed, while younger mice simply aged slower.

Now, humans live a lot longer than mice, so it's likely we'll need multiple transfusions over the course of our lifetimes to sustain the CAR T anti-aging effect, but we're still talking periods of years rather than days or even hours for current anti–senescent cell drugs. And if we've learned anything from the Ozempic debacle, people will absolutely line up to take a miracle drug, even if it means taking away from the people who actually need it.

And speaking of patients who actually need CAR T cells, they've been in the news for another, more interesting reason. The FDA has told the various CAR T manufacturers to add a warning to the labels of their respective drugs, noting that their anti-cancer products ... can cause cancer.

Since the first approval of a CAR T drug, the FDA has received 25 reports of rare blood cancers in patients who underwent CAR T treatment. In additions, multiple studies have been recently published that have noted a potential link between CAR T and new blood cancers.

Well, this is awkward.

It isn't actually as bad as it sounds. Ignoring the slight irony of people developing a new blood cancer after undergoing treatment for their initial blood cancer, 25 people is less than 1% of the total number of people who have received CAR T treatment. Also, it's still unknown whether or not the relationship between CAR T and these new blood cancers is causal or coincidental. The problem could very well be other things associated with cancer treatment, such as radiation or chemotherapy.

The solution then is really quite simple for cancer patients: Rather than bundling your cancer treatments all together, you should really order your chimeric antigen receptor T cells on their own. You know, à la CAR T.

I'll show myself out.

Review: The Links at Gettysburg (Part 1)

The Links at Gettysburg and I have had this day coming for a long time. It's been on the back of my mind for years. In many ways, this review will be special. It's not every day you get to see a golf course as bad as this. 

Perhaps I should explain. Back in 2006, I played a high school golf tournament here, and to say it did not go well would be an understatement. Now, I'm very willing to accept my shortcomings as a golfer, especially back then when I was 14 years old. But on any other golf course, my round would have been 10 or 15 shots lower simply because the Links at Gettysburg is just that badly designed. My opinion was only solidified a few years later when one of my younger brothers also played a high school golf tournament here; while his round certainly went better than mine, his opinion was the same: This golf course is absolutely awful. It is, to this day, the worst golf course I ever played. 

Or is it? 2006 is a long time ago, and my eye for golf courses has improved immensely. I've seen actual golf courses now, courses capable of hosting professional golf tournaments, even majors. I've also seen some pretty terrible golf courses. Does the Links at Gettysburg still hold up as the worst golf course I've ever played? I think that's a question worth pursuing. 

The first hole starts things off in exactly the sort of way you'd expect from a course called "the Links at" something: With hundreds of trees in play. The hole is 370 yards and doglegs hard left about 225 yards out, with the fairway dropping down into a valley with a small stream at the bottom. Go beyond the dogleg and you'll be faced with a tremendously awkward downhill/sidehill stance. Miss the fairway by any significant margin and you'll have overhanging trees in the way. That makes your only realistic option on the tee a supremely exciting lay-up with a long iron. The green is across the stream and is protected by two bunkers – one short and one long – and a retaining wall for some reason. Don't know why it's there, no other green has a wall like that, and I'm pretty certain a bit of earthmoving could have shored the green up in a more effective and more natural fashion. 

(A side note: The back tees are listed at nearly 7,100 yards on the scorecard; however, they were not provided during this round. Who knows if they're ever put out anymore? Therefore, I will be listing yardages from the blue tees, which were the longest provided set out there. It makes the course a more reasonable 6,700 yards.)

The first hole.

Approaching the first green. Why is there a retaining wall in front? Excellent question.

The first green.

The second hole is 390 yards and also plays through the forest. Really seeing the Links moniker here. The fairway doglegs 90 degrees right at around 240-250 yards out, with a bunker in the corner to catch anyone trying to shorten the hole. It is possible to clear that bunker with a driver, but then you're risking running out of space on the other side. And don't think of laying back with an iron; anything that doesn't at least draw even with the fairway bunker will have no shot at the green. This is target golf at its "finest": Hit the fairway, hit the green, which is on the other side of a ravine, completely cut off from the rest of the hole. Oh, and there's a bunker right in front as well, just to make the shallow green that much more intimidating to hit.  

The second hole.

Approaching the second green. Much shorter than this and I'd have no shot at the flag.

The second green.

The third hole brings us to our first encounter with the red rock cliffs the Links at Gettysburg prides itself on. To quote from the website, the third is "the signature hole, a dramatic par 3 from an elevated tee to a large undulating green that fronts a red rock cliff. Hit the ball too far and you’ll find the large trap in front of the cliff. Leave it short and you’ll hit the creek in front of the green. This 187 yard hole is a daunting test of golf."

Let me tell you something about those red rock cliffs: They look absolutely terrible. The problem is that literally no effort was made in making them look like natural formations. I mean, obviously the rocks themselves are natural, I'm sure a few thousand tons of rock weren't placed in various locations around the course, but their presentation is awful. The rock wall on this hole is completely sheer and vertical. Nature doesn't make cliffs at a 90 degree angle. You can even see a series of equidistant grooves running vertically along the entire thing, which I'm guessing is a remnant of whatever they did to shape the cliff face into its current form. The wall's so uniform that my brother purposefully bounced a chip shot from over the green into the wall and had it ricochet back at the hole. The only reason he didn't end up next to the flag is because he hit the pitch too hard. It's a literal backboard.

Anyway, the hole itself is fine, I suppose, though about as far from a links as you could possibly imagine. It would work fine on most courses, provided they took a little bit of care sculpting the rock wall. At least the hazard in front is natural.

The third hole. 

The third green. Unfortunately, the rock wall is in shadow, so you can't make out the details, but the blasting/landscaping work involved was absolutely horrendous. Literally no effort was made to make the wall look natural.

The fourth hole is a very short par 5, playing just 460 yards, with the drive being significantly downhill. You can make the hole even shorter by challenging the trees in the corner of the dogleg; carry them and you could have as little as a short iron second. But of course, the margin for error while hitting driver is small, as the fairway is pinched by trees on both sides. The bunkers are of course present but barely relevant. The green is narrow and flanked by sand. A tough approach if you're coming at it from 200 yards away, not so much if you lay up. This is actually not a terrible hole, but I wish the bunkers were more relevant. Also, the fact that a links-style course (as silly as that moniker is) is relying on trees as a hazard is just silly.

The fourth hole.

Approaching the fourth green.

The fourth green.

The fifth hole is a fairly short 350 yard par 4 where you have to make an interesting choice on the tee. There's a large fairway bunker right, but if you use driver you can clear it quite easily, giving you a very open landing area. However, you'll be left with a short half-wedge into a small green surrounded by sand on three sides. Not the easiest shot in the world. If you lay back and bring the bunker into play on the drive, you'll have a full wedge into the green, meaning you'll be able to put spin on the golf ball and hopefully worry less about the bunkers around the green. I wouldn't call this a good hole, exactly, but it (along with the previous hole) are the best the Links at Gettysburg has to offer. It's all downhill from here. 

The fifth hole.

The fifth green.

The sixth hole is certainly a golf hole that exists. Usually, when you get a short par 3, there's an element of danger in play on the tee shot. Something to add spice to a wedge/short iron tee shot. After all, you know the golfer will have a short club in hand. This hole does not have that. Sure, there's a couple bunkers, but they're at best level with the green and are mostly behind it completely. There is no good reason to end up in one beyond a drastic mishit or misclub. This tee shot is just a wedge into a not particularly interesting green with minimal danger. If I'm being generous, there's a couple of small mounds built into the sides of the greens which would be mildly inconvenient to deal with if you had to putt/chip across them. But we're talking a very mild inconvenience. And yet, this is still one of the course's better holes. At least it's not actively awful. 

The sixth hole.

Speaking of actively awful, welcome to the seventh hole, home of the world's worst tee shot. Let me be clear: Having water on both sides of the fairway is always a bad idea. Always. It's especially a bad idea when you're approaching the fairway from a 45 degree angle, the fairway's quite narrow and firm, and you're unsure of the distances needed to clear the first pond while remaining short of the second one, all while calculating what effect the 40-foot elevation change and moderate wind will have. 

Obviously, laying up short of the ponds is an option, and in fact, that's what I did the first time around. However, there's a big glaring flaw in that plan: It's incredibly stupid. This hole is 580 yards. Do you really want to tee off with a mid iron on a long par 5? I played this hole 6 iron, 3 wood, pitching wedge back in 2006. That is an absolutely silly and ridiculous playing strategy. Oh, and there's a big fairway bunker about 150 yards away from the green, narrowing the fairway precisely where you'd be laying up if you played safe on the tee. Absolute genius move right there. Not at all needlessly punishing on people just looking to avoid the water.

Obviously, what you're supposed to do is challenge the water with a long iron or even driver. However, the precision required to hit this fairway goes beyond skill and straight into the realm of luck. And it would be so simple (theoretically) to fix this hole. Just get rid of the far pond, and this becomes the fun drive it was supposed to be. Challenge as much of the first pond as you dare, potentially bringing the green in range on the second shot, but if you get too greedy, you're punished. A classic heroic drive. What we have here is the most unfun penal design you could imagine.

Anyway, the rest of the hole is just sort of there. The fairway bunker's easily passed so long as you didn't bail out on the tee shot, there's a greenside bunker right, and the green is pretty unexciting. So yeah, this hole manages to be both stupid and boring. I think it's the worst hole on the course, but as we'll see, the seventh is far from the only candidate for that award.

The seventh hole, in all its glory.

Approaching the seventh green.

The seventh green.

The eighth hole is 320 yards, making it potentially driveable for long hitters. And honestly, if you have the length to reach the green, you should go for it. Not because it's open and easy to get to, because it isn't. You've got a rock wall right, two bunkers flanking the green, and a native area filled with brush and long grass left. The margin for error is not large. However, your options for laying up are pretty much just as limited. There's a couple of big bunkers in the lay-up zone 75-100 yards from the green. The only significant mass of fairway is immediately over the stream/native area, and laying up to that means using a mid iron off of the tee and leaving yourself over 100 yards on a 320 yard hole. Obviously, you can do that, but literally no one would want to and I imagine very few people do. If anything, there's more margin for error using driver than 3 wood/long iron, as the rock wall cuts in about 250-275 yards out than moves back out. This hole is just badly conceived and badly designed. At least it's not long like the last hole was.

The eighth hole. More incredibly natural rock walls come into play here.

The eighth hole.

The ninth hole is the final time the Links at Gettysburg presents a hole without water in play. Okay, technically a stream crosses right in front of the tee, but that doesn't really count. After crossing the valley, the drive has to contend with O.B. far left and two bunkers right. The second shot is uphill and to a fairly large green with bunkers on each side. If that doesn't sound very interesting, that's because it isn't. Still one of the course's better holes.

The ninth hole.

The ninth green.

That's it for this week, come back next week for the exciting conclusion.

Beer of the Week

The beer: Blackberry Kölsch Ale

The brewery: Ellicottville Brewing Company, Little Valley, New York

Description (from the website): "Brewed with refreshing, mildly dry wild blackberry flavor and aroma.  Light, crisp and delicious. Natural, earthy berry sweetness."

Would I buy it again? This is a wonderfully simple, refreshing beer to drink. Nice and light, with just the right amount of blackberry flavor balanced out by the light maltiness of the beer. It would be ideal on a nice, mid-spring evening, but the middle of January is hardly a bad time to drink this beer. Since I like blackberries (well, the taste of blackberries, anyway), I'm definitely going to keep an eye out for this beer in the future.

They May Take Our Lives, But They'll Never Take Our Oversized Wine Glasses!

Ah, alcohol. The cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems. You do so much for us, and yet, you're so bad for us. 

It is an unfortunate truth that, for as great as a nice bottle of beer is, alcohol is a public health nightmare. Alcohol consumption is the fifth largest contributor to premature death and disease across the world, responsible for upward of 3 million deaths a year. The battle between alcohol and no-fun "there is no safe level of alcohol consumption" public health experts is never ending, but now, thanks to a new study, the doctors have a new weapon in their arsenal.

The premise of the study, conducted in England – a place where you quite literally can't take a step without stumbling into a pub – was simple: How is alcohol consumption affected when pubs stop offering their largest size of wine glass? 

For 4 weeks, a group of 20 pubs simply stopped offering their largest wine glass – 250 mL in all but three cases. And this intervention did indeed result in a small but noticeable 7.6% reduction in daily wine consumption. More importantly, beer and spirits sales showed no noticeable increase, daily revenues were not affected, and just four of the establishments included in the intervention received complaints about the missing wine glass.  

So, what does this mean overall? Well, for one, the researchers said that people who frequent drinking establishments generally limit themselves to a specific number of alcoholic units. Which makes sense, if you have to drive home, you can only drink one or two beers or glasses of wine. The size is a secondary concern; if bars offer smaller sizes and people drink the same number of drinks, quite naturally the amount of alcohol consumed is reduced. Your liver is happy, the bartenders are happy, the doctors are happy, everyone wins. 

There is, however, just one problem with this study. Sure, the English didn't complain much, but they have their whole stiff upper lip thing going on. Try this study again in Scotland and we'll see how they take it. The headline practically writes itself: "Wine consumption in Scotland down, scotch consumption up 500%."

Apparently It's A Good Time To Be A Copy Editor

So says a study published in Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly. As a copy editor currently out of work, however, I'm struggling to see it. But one can never argue with the data, and in a survey of nearly 500 copy editors in various fields such as news media, book publishing, corporate communications, and academic editing back in late 2021, most reported high levels of job satisfaction and work quality, as well as low levels of burnout and role overload.

To be fair, most copy editors also reported general pessimism about role advancement and potential for higher salaries, but this is journalism we're talking about here. No one gets into journalism to strike it rich. 

The authors were also fairly surprised to discover that the pandemic had little effect on job satisfaction, but in retrospect they noted that many copy editors already worked remotely and that the ones who went full remote likely saw improvements in work-life balance. I know I certainly did when we went full remote. It was sure nice not having to spent 8 hours a week in the car heading to and from work on busy roads.

So, just to recap, copy editors by and large are having a good time; it's not a well-paying job, but it's a satisfying one. So, why did I have such a miserable time the last couple years? Oh yeah, our company got bought by Internet Brands. I think they might be colossal morons over there. Just a thought. Having the entire Internet laugh at them has certainly made this copy editor feel cathartic.

Beer of the Week

The beer: Get Toasted

The brewery: Big Oyster Brewery, Lewes, Delaware

Description (from the website): "Introducing Get Toasted, a delicious s’mores porter. Sitting by the campfire with friends and family roasting some S’mores sounds like a perfect night. A well-balanced porter with just the right touch of chocolate, graham crackers, and marshmallow."

Would I buy it again? The s'mores porter record continues to be an incredibly mixed bag of very high highs and very low lows. This, unfortunately, is not a high. The first word that came to mind when I drank this was "chalky." That's not an adjective I ever want to associate with beer. Needless to say, I would not purchase this again.

A Great Artificial Eye ... Lidless ... Wreathed In Tears

Science is weird sometimes. The things researchers do in order to prove a hypothesis or solve a problem can often come out as morally or ethically ... odd, to be generous. And growing crying human tissue in a petri dish? Yeah, that definitely comes down on the "manmade horror beyond human comprehension" side of things.

Okay, okay, it's a little more complicated than that. In reality, we don't have good models of human conjunctiva – the tissue that covers the white of the eyeball and the inside of the eyelid. It's a complete mystery as to why. "Why sure slightly overeager doctor, please harvest the outsides of my eyeballs! Sounds like a great and not at all traumatic experience."

Unfortunately, since we do know so little about the conjunctiva, growing an artificial version did involve harvesting naturally occurring human conjunctiva. But only a little, we swear! Most of the conjunctiva organoids the researchers experimented were artificial and grown in the lab.

Oh, you knew there would be experiments. It was never going to be enough to simply create crying human tissue. We needed to give it a reason to really cry. Hey, plenty of diseases affect the conjunctiva, we have to start somewhere in order to help treat those diseases.

And funnily enough, as the researchers exposed their artificial eyes to various stimuli, simulating different allergens, they found something unexpected: Tuft cells, which have never been found in the eye before. These cells are more typically associated with the intestines and their involvement with GI disorders like Crohn's disease. In the conjunctiva organoids, the tuft cells multiplied when the organoid was exposed to allergens, suggesting they play a role in the eye's reaction to allergies.

In addition, being able to grow conjunctiva in a lab suggests a future ability to replace damaged conjunctiva; that means people with ocular burns, eye cancers, or even genetic disorders that have damaged the eye could have their eyes repaired. It's just too bad Sauron spent all his time trying to conquer Middle-Earth; if he'd invested into ocular research maybe he could have grown himself some conjunctiva to combat that intense dry eye he had going throughout the Third Age.