Near-death experiences continue to take worldwide center stage as the discussion of mind-body issues heats up.

Major international media outlets have reported this past week on a large new research study on NDEs being spearheaded by Dr. Sam Parnia from the University of Southampton in the United Kingdom, who is currently a Fellow at New York's Weill Cornell Medical Center. Time Magazine describes the study, called AWARE (AWAreness during REsuscitation), in their current edition, which can be read at http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20080919/hl_time/whathappenswhenwedie.

We are pleased to announce the launch of a new page on the IANDS website with videos and audio files of researchers discussing NDEs and experiencers describing what happened to them. You can access these accounts by clicking on the NDE Video & Audio Page.

On January 23, 2008, a local paper in upstate New York, The Daily Star, published a fascinating story about the case of Dr. Tony Cicoria, a respected surgeon who was hit by lightning in 1994 and had an NDE that included an out-of-body experience. After recovering from his near-death experience, Dr. Cicoria returned to his medical practice and everything seemed back to normal.

Recently a paper was published in the New England Journal of Medicine about electrical stimulation of the brain that seemed to induce an out-of-body experience (OBE), a feature found in many NDEs. The new research is gaining media attention but the conclusions cited in the press are questionable.