Nintendo has been in the technology spotlight since announcing plans for a video-game controller that can be used with only one hand.

But a disabled fan in Southern California took notice for more reasons than just the excitement about the next generation of interactive entertainment.

To Travis Taft, 19, the controller was a stunning godsend in his fight against an injury that left him a quadriplegic. He has tried to call national attention to the unintended benefits that the gadget will offer for people with a variety of physical disabilities.

Like many people with spinal-cord injuries that affect all four limbs, Taft retains some use of his arms and hands. But it's not enough for effectively operating the typical two-hand game device. He's confident his relatively strong right hand will be able to manipulate the new controller, which is part of the Revolution game system that's still under development by Nintendo.

Therapy could help restore some function, some studies suggest

Vibrating tingles of electricity worm into the thin legs of paralyzed children, pulling at their muscles to pump up and down on a special bicycle.

It’s called electrical stimulation exercise therapy, and small but tantalizing studies suggest that this intense rehab just might help restore some function to people with spinal cord injuries, even if they were paralyzed long ago.

Desperate patients have sought this therapy since it was credited with helping the late Christopher Reeve regain the ability to feel human touch and move just a little, more than five years after a riding accident completely paralyzed the “Superman” star. Now scientists are putting the approach to a rigorous test — in a study with children that may begin to answer whether this sweat equity truly fuels recovery.

A homecoming for a young tornado victim.

Thirteen-year-old William Pfingston suffers from a paralyzing spinal cord injury when a twister tore through the Eastbrook mobile home park.

After months of treatment at an Indianapolis hospital, William is now back home in Evansville.

It's been an exhausting few months for the Pfingston family. William's battle to recover has taken an emotional toll.

Treena Arinzeh, an assistant professor of biomedical engineering at New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) who is one of the USA's leading stem cell researchers, has received two grants that will help her bring the promise of stem cell research a step closer to reality.

Arinzeh received a $700,000 grant from the New Jersey Commission on Spinal Cord Research, a state agency that funds spinal cord research. She will use the grant to build a laboratory to test if stem cells taken from adult bone marrow can be made to turn into neurons. If her research shows that the cells can turn into neurons -- the nerve cells in the body that control brain and spinal cord function -- patients with spinal cord injuries could be healed with injections of stem cells.

Car and motorcycle crashes and falls are the most common causes of spinal cord injury in Australia, a new report shows.

And men are more likely than women to suffer serious damage to the spinal cord - the bundle of nerves that runs through the backbone.

The report, released by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW), shows motorcyclists are most at risk of spinal cord injury.

Hwang Mi-sun, 39, was once hailed as proof that miracle cures can happen. Paralyzed from the waist down and confined to a wheelchair because of a spinal cord injury she suffered when she was 19, she met the press on Nov. 25, 2004, and took a few steps with the aid of a walker.

Just over a year later, Ms. Hwang says her miracle has turned into a nightmare. She can no longer even sit in a wheelchair and now spends most of her time in bed and says she is in constant pain. Her story, and others like it, suggests that there was a headlong rush by the government and medical researchers to get a step ahead of the rest of the world in stem cell therapy and that corners were cut, including by the government's medical oversight body.

Thomas "Jay" Harn is just 16, but he's had a passion for hunting since he was barely kindergarten age.

On Nov. 5, the Banks County High School student was doing what he loved best, deer hunting in Middle Georgia's Hancock County.

Then one misstep changed his life forever. Leaning out of a deer stand, he somehow fell forward, somersaulted in the air and landed on his back more than 10 feet below.

"At first I was so stunned I didn't know what happened," he said. "But right away I could tell that I couldn't feel my legs."