 A young woman, paralysed since 1994, has become the world's first stroke victim to receive a transplant of pig's foetal cells tin a bid to rebuild her brain.
Today, five years to the day since the stroke paralysed her left side, 39-year-old Maribeth Cook is beginning to walk without a leg brace , is speaking more clearly, and can even wiggle her toes on her left foot to order. She has also taken a part-time job , answering phones. All this has happened in just one month since the operation at Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts. |
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 By the end of this year men and women in Europe and America could be walking about, leading practically normal lives with a grapefruit-sized electric heart replacing their diseased hearts - and no wires to give the show away. Already, in five hospitals across America, 50 critically ill heart patients are being monitored to assess whether they are suitable candidates for the revolutionary self-contained electric heart . More than other development so far,observers believe it is a major step towards the mythical bionic man. |
 Just turned 47, nurse Debbie Brindley wasn't worried enough about her looks to think about plastic surgery - but she really wanted to do SOMETHING. "I had that tired-face look, and fine lines and wrinkles were beginning to appear, " she said. "I really thought I could be looking better."
Then when her boss Dr David McDaniel started testing a revolutionary new light treatment as part of a clinical trial in anti-ageing techniques, she volunteered to change roles and become a patient.
It was a lot easier than she thought. Said Debbie. " All I had to do was to wash my face, then sit in front of this screen, with thousand of little yellew lights for about a minute at a time . ."
She had eight sessions about three weeks apart., one minute each time. Now the amazing device that transformed Debbie's complexion is set to obtain official US Government approval |
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 The new film King Arthur which opened this summer moves the location for the stirring deeds of the legendary king to the area of Hadrian’s Wall on the Scottish Border, hundreds of miles north of Glastonbury in Somerset which has long been the centre for Arthurian folklore.
But for once, according to historian John Matthews, this is not a case of Hollywood distorting the facts to get a better story
“I am firmly convinced this is the nearest you are ever going to get to the truth about Arthur,” says Matthews, who was the historical adviser on the film. “There is now overwhelming evidence ."
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Shackleton's injustice to the crusty Scot who saved his crew
A bronze statue of a watchful ship’s cat has been placed on the grave of its master, a crusty old Scots carpenter, in a cemetery in Wellington, New Zealand, righting a 90-year-old injustice .
The cat, Mrs Chippy (actually a male) is on guard against anyone else who dares trifle with the reputation of his beloved master, Harry McNish. And in particular any apologist for Sir Ernest Shackleton, who not only denied McNish the Polar medal he richly deserved - but also had Mrs Chippy shot in cold blood when the crew was forced to take to the ice.
It is a fitting end to an epic tale that saw Shackleton’s 28-strong crew escape with their lives after the explorer’s 1914 Antarctic expedition went disastrously wrong. If Chippy could purr, he would.
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