Scientists studying people in minimally conscious states have published the results of brain scans showing that these people can retain a surprising amount of brain activity. The New York Times and MSNBC, among others, have written up accounts.

I profiled these scientists for a 2003 article in the New York Times Magazine, when they were at an earlier stage in their research. Things certainly have changed since then. When my article came out, hardly anyone had heard of Terri Schiavo, the Florida woman in a permanent vegetative state who is at the center of a battle between her parents, who want to keep her feeding tube in, and her husband, who wants it taken out. Since then,