Again, this is pretty big news in medicine, I think. CNN.com - Health - Someday, maybe, repairs for spines and brains - November 6, 2000

"Mice paralyzed by a virus were able to move their feet -- and a few were even able to stand again -- after versatile stem cells were injected into the fluid around their spinal cords in a medical study."

This story - and the one about arthritis - made me think a little about what the world would be like if science came up with a cure for something huge, like, say, cancer. It wouldn't be an overnight sensation, like the fall of the Berlin Wall (which seemed to happen supernaturally quickly), but a story that writes itself in dribs and drabs. I wonder what it was like as polio was largely eradicated in the U.S...