Applying an electric current and getting a muscle to jump is easy. (Alessandro Volta jolted a frog's legs 218 years ago.) Peckham is harvesting the body's own electrical signals to control muscles that have been cut off from the nervous system, a process called functional electrical stimulation, or FES. Peckham runs a group called the Cleveland FES Center, a collaboration among Case Western Reserve and two Cleveland hospitals.

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It's a process that, understandably, contributes to broadcast executives being rather nervous about taking risks.

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The team believe that not only do the growth factors play a key role in development of the central nervous system, but also that too much of them may disrupt the normal process by which a cell develops into the correct type and moves to the right area, and dies at the right time.

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The last part of the process will be my interview with the sheriff, which makes me a little nervous, but luckily, I have already met him on previous occasions.

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