Discover magazine covered the year in science this month and had many interesting reports. Here are a few.

      One of them was about Terry Wallis who suffered severe brain damage in an auto accident and for nineteen years was in a speechless, minimally conscious state until one day in 2003 he suddenly called his mother “mom.” After recovering speech he regained some limb use. Doctors used a technique to study his brain and found that it had developed the ability to heal itself in areas that affected speech and movement. Doctors are amazed and feel it gives new insight into the brain’s ability to heal itself.

      The magazine has a report about chimpanzees. At the DNA level, humans and chimps are 98% alike, however our brain is larger and more complex then theirs is.  It would appear we shared a common ancestor.

      It reported that Terry Wallis had been in an coma like state for nineteen years after an auto accident and was speechless as well as without movement. Suddenly one day in 2003 he called his mother "mom" and from that point began improvement in speech and movement. Doctors used a technique to study his brain and found that it had healed itself in critical areas. This amazing discovery gives us new insight to the ability of the brain to heal itself.

     Surgeons have implanted an electrode in the brain of a paralyzed man. He was able to use movement and many other activities that he had been incapable of doing before by simply thinking about doing it and activating the tiny computer like device.

     After a five year study its been confirmed that people working at the site of the World Trade Center after 9/11 have suffered significant respiratory problems in spite of the Environmental Health Agency’s reassurance that it was safe to work there during clean up operations. In fact the air was full of hazardous materials and was unsafe, the study of 9500 people revealed. The Agency now claims it was only talking about the air in the general Manhattan area and not the specific site area, but whistle blowers have revealed that the Bush administration feared a general public panic and instructed the Agency to reassure the people. This is only one aspect of government deception about the health status of the area.