"I'm doing the exact same things as them. I'm getting buddies and stuff," said Myers, who had relearned to walk and was reading at a second-grade level before his video game therapy began in May 2004.

"I couldn't remember where I put stuff and now I can. I remember school stuff and people's names," he said in a telephone interview from his family's home in Colorado.

More fundamentally, Myers can now fully open his right hand, which paralysis had curled closed. His brother and sister, who were in the car with him during the accident and each suffered mild brain injuries, have also shown improvement in their memory and other functions.

Ethan and his parents attribute his most recent progress to neuro-feedback training on the CyberLearning Technology LLC system, which is often used to play car racing video games.

"In the last year, we've seen the Ethan we knew before the accident," said Howard Myers, the teenager's father.

A NEW FRONTIER

Neuro-feedback is a form of conditioning that rewards people for producing specific brain waves, such as those that appear when a person is relaxed or paying attention.

While this form of treatment has been around for decades, incorporating video games marks a new frontier that taps young people's fascination with animation and electronics to sweeten often frightening, lengthy and tedious medical treatments.

Video games are being used, for instance, to help sick children manage pain and anxiety during hospital stays.

A young leukemia patient inspired "Ben's Game," which let him fight the cancer cells invading his body. A private island called Brigadoon in Linden Lab's "Second Life" virtual world is open only to people with Asperger's syndrome and autism.

West Virginia's public schools are battling obesity by making "Dance Dance Revolution" -- a step-to-the-beat video game -- part of their curriculum, while Nintendo Co. Ltd. has made a splash with its new "Brain Age" mind-exercising game.

NASA TECHNOLOGY

CyberLearning's SMART BrainGames system, which Myers still uses, targets symptoms arising from brain injuries, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and learning disabilities.

Priced at $584, the system is built on NASA technology that used video games and neuro-feedback to train pilots to stay alert during long flights and calm during emergencies. It is compatible with Sony Corp.'s PlayStation 1 and 2 consoles as well as Microsoft Corp.'s Xbox, which video game-crazed kids are quite familiar with.

Users wear a helmet with built-in sensors to measure brain waves. That data is relayed to a neuro-feedback system that affects the game controller.

Car racing games work best with the system, which rewards users by telling the controller to allow them to go fast and steer with control, doctors said. When patients' brain waves aren't in "the zone" the controller makes it harder to accelerate and steer.

Families generally pay $2,000 to $2,500 for a six-month supervised program with one of CyberLearning's 55 licensed health professionals trained on the SMART BrainGames system.

SKEPTICS, COST REMAIN HURDLES

Despite demonstrated benefits of neuro-feedback, one pediatrician said better-designed studies are needed to help parents of children with ADHD make informed decisions.

"We have some very effective treatments for kids with ADHD," said Dr. Andrew Adesman, chief of developmental and behavioral pediatrics at Schneider Children's Hospital in New Hyde Park, New York. "I'd be concerned about parents pursuing expensive and not very established treatments in lieu of more proven therapies."

Traditional treatments, such as prescribing the stimulant
Ritalin, behavioral therapy and education, are often covered by health insurance, while neuro-feedback usually is not.

Despite such hurdles, some medical practitioners are advocating the new approach.

Last year, Margaret MacDonald, a San Jose, California doctor, focused her practice on neuro-feedback after her son's attention-deficit symptoms improved within three months of using CyberLearning's system.

She starts patients with 20- to 25-minute sessions at least two times per week and recommends that they work with a trained professional to ensure they are reinforcing the right brain wave activity to produce the desired result.

"This isn't something you can just play with .... You could train the wrong thing and cause someone to become more anxious and irritable," she said.

Steven Stockdale, the licensed psychologist in Colorado Springs, Colorado, who treats Ethan Myers, said he has seen some nice changes come about from the video game therapy.

"Kids can become less agitated, more calm and less angry," he said. "It's much more engaging."

Chandra Wickramasinghe, of Cardiff University, is investigating claims made by one Indian researcher that the phenomenon may have been caused by a passing comet depositing extraterrestrial organisms over our planet.

Prof Wickramasinghe, head of the Cardiff Centre for Astrobiology, said, "I think this is potentially extremely important.

"My own personal interest is that for the past 30 years I have worked on the theory that life didn't start on Earth but on comets some 4,000 million years ago and there's an increasing body of evidence to support that point of view.

"We are intercepting cometary material and would expect microorganisms to come to Earth on a semi-regular basis."

The latest research started after red rain fell on the southwestern state of Kerala in August 2001.

Initial speculation suggested the rain's colour was the result of dust swept up by winds across Arabia.

But Godfrey Louis, a physicist at Mahatma Gandhi University in Kottayam, believes the particles that rained down contain types of cell-like organisms markedly different from anything else found on our planet.

Dr Louis said, "The red particles, which were part of the red rain, are possibly of extra-terrestrial origin.

"Under an optical microscope they appear like biological cells and the transmission electron microscopy shows a clear cell structure and their organic nature is indicated by the major presence of carbon and oxygen.

"But despite these biological indications the cells do not show the presence of any DNA.

"The genetic molecule DNA is present in all living organisms found on Earth. So the absence of DNA indicates that they are extraterrestrial."

There were several reports of a sonic boom in the region at the time the rains started, which may be consistent with meteors.

He said he had never seen such a thing in his 50 years as a priest, with the wounds appearing to be covered in blood.

He believed the stigmata was real, saying he had no reason to think the man was a fraud.

"I haven't come across anything like this before," Father Walsh said.

"I have seen the wounds. They are not fake. He is getting the wounds of Jesus on his hands and feet.

"You see them bleeding. When he has them, he is in great pain. But they disappear within 24 hours. It has to be a miracle.

"Who knows how it happens. You ask God how he does it."

There have been 500 reported stigmatics who have displayed wounds similar to those inflicted upon Jesus.

The first case was that of Archbishop Stephen Langton, of England, recorded in 1222.

St Francis of Assisi suffered wounds in La Verna, Italy, in 1224.

Catholic Archbishop Barry Hickey refused to speak to The Sunday Times this week about the incident. He said through a spokesman that he was aware of what was happening in Rockingham.

"He won't talk with anyone about it," spokesman Hugh Ryan said.

The Sunday Times contacted the man this week.

Identifying himself only as Ian, he said he had been asked by the Catholic Church not to speak to the media.

"I can't answer your questions. It's a humility thing and I have to be obedient to those who have said I can't talk about it," he said.

"Different things happen to people and they happen for a reason.

"Why they happen, we don't understand."

Asked if he was frightened by what was happening to him, he said: "No, why should I be?"

Father Walsh said the man had received hundreds of messages from the Virgin Mary.

She appeared to him on the eighth day of every month and sometimes more often.

"I have been there when he says he has seen Our Lady," Father Walsh said. "He is the only one who sees her. The only evidence is his word.

"I don't think he (is lying). He is a holy person."

Your book calls for a scientific investigation into religion. Why is now the right time for this?

Since religions influence people's lives so much, since their loyalties to their religions play such a role in how they respond to every issue, we need to understand it. If you go in with the best of intentions to solve the problem of poverty or the problem of injustice, and you trample over people's religious practices in the process, you're just going to make matters worse.

In your book, you write that loyalty to religion often trumps what people might really believe. What is the difference between believing in God and believing in belief?

Every successful religion has managed to create a sense of obligation. [People think:] "Gosh, it would be terrible if I stopped believing in God. My whole life would lose meaning."
People are anxious about this, and so they say they believe even when they don't, and they work to regenerate the belief if it ever flags.

The name of your book implies that religious believers are under a spell, that they don't have a choice about what they believe. If this is the case, how can you get people to change their minds?

First, I want to point out that many religious people insist on that. They say, "I am completely helpless in the face of my faith; it's much stronger than I am. It's not like deciding what car to buy. It's not a rational choice--it's something that overwhelms me."

How do you deal with someone in that state? First of all, you take what they say seriously, and ask them, "Are you really disabled by this, or not? Let's explore and see if you can actually be reasonable." Some people can and some people can't. Let's find out which are which.

Is it possible to be both religious and rational?

That's what I'm trying to find out. I've tried to write a book that reasonable, rational people, however religious, can read. They might be uncomfortable, they will be upset at times, they may be offended, though I'm not trying to offend or insult them.

You write that loyalty to religion is a bit like falling in love, and that's why people take such great offense when you try to counter their views. How are they similar?

The emotional passion with which people declare their love for their religion should be taken very seriously. Whenever there is a love object, whether it is another person, or a nation or a religious creed or the Boston Red Sox, there is a built-in, outraged response to anything that threatens or demeans or is even skeptical [of that love object]. If you start saying something skeptical of my loved one, my dukes are up. That's a response which I'm quite sure is genetically favored in our species, in the same way it's favored in mammals in general to protect their young.

Your book implies that many people believe in God or at least believe in "belief" because they don't know how else to lead meaningful lives. How can you explain to someone how life can be meaningful without God?

Well, by leading a meaningful life. As I look around the world, I see all sorts of heroes in every walk of life. But there is a prejudice against this because a lot of [atheists] are reluctant to point it [their lack of belief] out. Nobody wants to spend their life going around being the 'village atheist.' They're much more interested in just leading a good and normal life.

So a lot of people, I find, are surprised to see me so candidly and cheerfully acknowledging my atheism. Not because they're not atheists, but because they don't go around mentioning it. I think that's unfortunate.

You helped promote the term "Bright" a few years ago, as a way to describe nonbelievers. What does that term mean?

The term was coined by Mynga Futrell and Paul Geisert in California. What they saw was that the homosexual community did something politically wonderful by essentially kidnapping the word "gay," which had its own meaning before, and turning it into a word that meant homosexual. It was a positive, happy word. Similarly, Bright is a positive word. I suggest that just as if you're not gay, you're straight, we could say if you're not Bright, you're Super. After all, they believe in the supernatural and we don't. That's the difference. Brights are those people who don't believe in anything supernatural.

You mentioned that nobody wants to be the village atheist. Do you feel that atheists today need one?

The fact that I have written this book shows that I do think that. I'm not relishing the role. I think there are much more interesting things that I could be working on--my life work on consciousness, wrinkles in evolutionary theory. But this is a job that somebody's got to do, so I guess I'm going to do it.

Have you had an experience of converting from belief to nonbelief?

When I was a child I was confirmed in the Congregational church. I went to Sunday school. I took it all quite seriously.

There was no big conversion moment for me. I just gradually realized I didn't believe any of it. I loved the stories, I loved the music, I loved religious art, and the King James version of the Bible. But I don't believe any of it.

Do you believe science and religion must be in conflict, or are they ever compatible?

I think there is quite a conflict. I've never been persuaded by those self-appointed moderates in science who keep insisting there's no real conflict between science and religion if they keep to their proper bailiwicks. If you look at what the proper bailiwick for religion turns out to be, it's pretty darn narrow. If you think that religion is a path to any kind of factual truth, on any matter--like the creation of the biosphere, the age of the earth--if you think that religion has anything at all to say about that, or if you think that religion has anything to say about the truths of the stories in its own sacred texts, then you're just wrong.

Where would you start with your suggested investigation of religion?

Religion is a fairly recent phenomenon by biological standards, and organized religion is younger still. So if you want to understand the roots of religion, you have to go back into prehistory and look at what might have laid the groundwork, in our ecology and our psychology and in our biology for the attitudes and the habits that permitted and encouraged religion to flourish.

You mention the validity of intercessory prayer as one aspect of religion that could be studied.

I talk about some of the ongoing research. The [Herbert] Benson study from Harvard Medical School on the effects, if any, of intercessory prayer is one that people have been waiting for some time to see the results of. It's heavily funded and presumably very effectively done. This is carefully controlled science. The study is now several years overdue. People are wondering, Is that because they didn't get any effect, and they don't like that result? Nobody quite knows, but it will sure be interesting when that report comes out.

What will happen if that report does come out and shows that intercessory prayer has no effect?

Well, it will certainly irritate a lot of people. That's the trouble with science. If you disconfirm your pet theory, then what do you do? You do another study and another study. If all the studies show the same thing, then you have to say, Look, you were just wrong. Recently in the papers there was the result of a multiyear study on whether a low-fat diet was really all that wonderful for women. The results are negative. And a lot of people are deeply embarrassed. But there have been articles in the scientific press for a number of years that have suggested the low-fat bandwagon was based on bad science in the first place, and that it was largely maintained and propelled by the low-fat food industry.

If the negative studies mount, then I think religions are going to have to face the same things that the pharmaceutical companies face. You can't say that these prayers perform miracles. It's false advertising.

You said that you're willing--although reluctant--to be the Village Atheist for now. Who would you draft to do it with you?

I'm sure hoping a lot of people will join hands with me. I'm coming out of the closet--I'm a Bright. I would love to see the day when people in other parts of the country can be as calm as I am. I'm living in Massachusetts, and this is the land of the Brights. But I get mail from people in the Bible Belt, in the Midwest, and in the South, people who say "If I made that declaration, I'd lose my job, I'd be driven out of town, nobody would do any business with me."

Are you anti-religion?

I'm actually not anti-religion. I'm certainly opposed to the presumption that religion is wonderful and a necessary part of human life. I feel about religion the way I feel about music, about art, and about smoking. There are wonderful things about all of them. I don't smoke anymore. I'm really glad I don't, and I hope other people don't smoke, but if they do, that's fine. It's not that bad, and some people may really need it. Music and art are better, but people can be addicted to those too.

What would your ideal vision for the role of religion in society?

I think the organizational genius of religion, its capacity to muster wonderful throngs of devoted and selfless actors in major moral efforts is something quite wonderful. It played a huge role in the Civil Rights movement, it played a huge role in upsetting apartheid in South Africa, and it played a role in overthrowing the Shah of Iran (though I feel a little differently about that).

Religious teams have done a lot of excellent moral work. On the other hand, religious teams have done a lot of harm. This is a very powerful force that is very hard to control. And I have not been able to figure out myself whether we can have the power without too much risk.

The team looked at whether the fragments' microbial passengers might find a home on one of the solar system's potentially sustaining worlds. Speaking at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in League City, Texas, Gladman said in the course of five million years Jupiter's moon Europa would get 100 hits and Saturn's Titan be seeded 30 times.

Despite its lower hit rate, the researchers think Titan more likely to have been fertilised. They calculated that Jupiter's gravity would pile the fragments into frozen Europa too fast. Titan's thick atmosphere whould split the fragments and slow the descent meanwhile.

Gladman was asked if he thought Earthly microbes would be able to endure Titan's freezing temperatures. He said: "That's for you people to decide, I'm just the pizza delivery boy."

The finding tips the panspermia theory on its head, and makes it a more interesting proposition. This once-fashionable idea of how life got started on Earth postulates that it was brought here by rocks from other worlds. While an undeniably diverting speculation, a cosmic common ancestry seems unprovable. Advocates cling to the apparently short time it took from Earth's formation to the emergence of life - around half a billion years. However, with a sample size of precisely one we cannot know the likelihood of life.

More crucially, panspermia contributes nothing to the quest for a complete theory of how life can emerge spontaneously - an important missing piece in the evolutionary jigsaw. The idea simply shifts the problem to another world.