Technology Slice Blog

Rep Gabrielle Giffords Communicating with Family - Gabrielle Giffords has not only opened her eyes, but is also communicating with her family, her doctors say. ''Her family has asked her very specific things and she has used her hand to communicate with them,'' said Michael Lemole, a neurosurgeon at Tucson's University Medical Centre and one of the surgeons who operated on Ms Giffords. That implied she had a good amount of cognitive functioning, Dr Lemole said. He was at Ms Giffords's bedside when she first opened her eyes on Wednesday evening in the presence of family members and some of her colleagues from Congress, he said. Advertisement: Story continues below Rep Gabrielle Giffords Communicating with Family ''It was probably a combination of the unexpected but familiar that prompted her to open her eyes and caused her to look around. That implies that the part of the brain that lets us awake from sleeping, the arousal centre'', is f...