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Watch the moment a British retired Royal Marine suffering from degenerative Parkinson’s Disease had his world changed forever Video..

Three years ago I was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease and through a year long process, I have been approved for Deep Brain Stimulation. I have 3 procedures to go through. The first on May 5 (tomorrow) is the simplest as they make four small incisions in my scalp and place small screws as markers for the MRI and CT which will be used to make a 3d printed jig for the second part. I will be under local anesthesia for this part because they don't want any movement during the CT and MRI. (I'm going to ask them to take...

For Parkinson’s patients, deep brain stimulation (DBS) can help control a number of neurological symptoms, like muscle spasms and stiffness. But one weird side effect has surfaced in a string of case studies: Some patients, no matter how good their motor skills, lose their ability to swim after the procedure. Researchers from the University of Zürich in Switzerland published a report today in Neurology identifying nine cases where patients couldn’t stay afloat after DBS. And these people weren’t water-shy, first time doggie paddlers — two of the cases involved former competitive swimmers. And, researchers report, the entire cohort had had...

Wrangling over the fate of the debt-ridden studio had thrown its plans to make new movies, including the next 007 film, into disarray. The 23rd Bond movie had been due for release in 2012, the 50th anniversary of Ian Fleming's spy character's first outing in Dr No.

The script for Bond 23 was penned by regular 007 collaborators Neal Purvis and Robert Wade (The World is not Enough, Die Another Day, Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace) and polished by newcomer Peter Morgan (The Queen). The LA Times also claims Sam Mendes, who is unofficially attached to direct the film, worked on the script last spring. The paper’s source claims “creative discussions among the writers and producers” have hampered the film’s development. The LA Times doesn’t elaborate on the specific nature of the alleged scripting issues, but speculates that it may owe to the lofty expectations placed...

One was a middle-aged man who refused to get into the shower. The other was a teenager who was afraid to get out. The man, Leonard, a writer living outside Chicago, found himself completely unable to wash himself or brush his teeth. The teenager, Ross, growing up in a suburb of New York, had become so terrified of germs that he would regularly shower for seven hours. Each received a diagnosis of severe obsessive-compulsive disorder, or O.C.D., and for years neither felt comfortable enough to leave the house. But leave they eventually did, traveling in desperation to a hospital in...

External magnetic fields or spine implants could provide alternatives to invasive brain surgery. Movement and motor skills can be at least partially restored by either stimulating or inhibiting particular regions of the rats' Parkinson's-like brains with light.Karl Deisseroth The symptoms of Parkinson's disease could one day be relieved by indirect electrical stimulation of the brain, via the spinal cord or even through the surface of the skull, according to two studies on rodents.Parkinson's disease is a severe neurological disorder characterized by tremors, rigid limbs and difficulty in moving. Some patients who do not respond to drug treatment undergo deep brain...

Jens Clausen is at the Institute of Ethics and History in Medicine, University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany. Email: jens.clausen@uni-tuebingen.de Top of page Abstract Brain-implantable devices have a promising future. Key safety issues must be resolved, but the ethics of this new technology present few totally new challenges, says Jens Clausen. D. PUDLES We are so surrounded by gadgetry that it is sometimes hard to tell where devices end and people begin. From computers and scanners to multifarious mobile devices, an increasing number of humans spend much of their conscious lives interacting with the world through electronics, the only barrier between brain...

Deep-brain stimulation offers hope for minimally conscious patients.CLEVELAND CLINIC Deep-brain stimulation might help trauma patients regain consciousness. Brain function has been improved in a patient who was in a minimally conscious state, by electrically stimulating a specific brain region with implanted electrodes. The achievement raises questions about the treatment of other patients who have been in this condition for years, the researchers say. Patients in a minimally conscious state, often the result of severe brain trauma, show only intermittent evidence of awareness of the world around them. Typically, they are assumed to have little chance of further recovery if they...

August 14, 2006 -- Reports from Iran say authorities are continuing their crackdown on Western television channels, raiding rooftops in search of banned satellite dishes. Iran's media today quoted Tehran police chief Morteza Talai as reminding residents that the use of satellite dishes is prohibited by law. Eyewitnesses say police have been raiding apartment blocks in Tehran's northern and western neighborhoods in the past few days, looking for prohibited dishes. AFP quoted a Tehran resident as saying security forces seized scores of satellite television equipment on August 13 in Velenjak district. The Iranian parliament in 1995 passed a law...

The fate of a sweeping telecommunications-tax-reform proposal might hinge on the impact that it were to be seen as having on 700,000 satellite-television subscribers in the Commonwealth. House Bill 2880, introduced last week by Chesterfield Republican Del. Sam Nixon, would change the way telecom taxes are collected and distributed in the Old Dominion and would spread the tax burden from traditional communications-system users to a wide spectrum of communications consumers. It is there that the satellite-TV sector comes into the picture. DirecTV subscribers in Virginia have known about the changes coming on the horizon since before the start of the...

Sunday’s 60 Minutes will look at how cable and direct-broadcast satellite companies profit from "adult" entertainment. The theme is how "companies you’d hardly expect" are profiting from porn, including such established players as General Motors (through its to-be-sold DirecTV), top cable companies and hotel chains like Marriott.