This is a wonderful opportunity to hear of a modern miracle... and one explored by a fantastic personality.

Jill Bolte Taylor is a brain scientist with an extraordinary history.

One morning, a blood vessel in her brain 'exploded'. Jill realized that she had a ringside seat to her own stroke, and that she would be able to watch (and learn) as her brain functions closed down: motion, speech, memory, self-awareness ...

Amazed even to find herself alive, Jill spent the next eight years recovering her ability to think, walk and talk. Her reaction to discovering what was happening to her is both professional/technical, and superbly humorous("I'm a busy woman. I don't have time for a stoke"). Now, she has become a powerful spokesperson for stroke recovery and for the possibility of coming back from brain injury stronger than before.

For her, the stroke which damaged the left side of her brain, unleashed a flood of new creative energy from her right. From her home base in Indiana, she now travels the country on behalf of the Harvard Brain Bank as the "Singin' Scientist."

Experience a little of this now with this clip from her amazing lecture delivered at the TED talks in February 2008.

Source Technology, Entertainment, Design [TED.com]