In past times, if your heart stopped beating, that probably meant that you Light at the end of a tunnelwouldn't live to tell the tale. But modern medical techniques mean that many heart attack patients survive, and those who've been that near to death often say that they experience bright lights or other strange phenomena. Until now, doctors have struggled to understand why, but Jimo Borjigin looked into the question in a paper in PNAS this week.

Jimo - In the literature, what I find is 10% to 20% of cardiac arrest survivors had their near-death experiences. There are various kinds. They are not all identical, but there are some common threads such as seeing bright light. But I even think that that number is underestimation because a lot of people are afraid to speak up about their experiences. They're afraid to be ridiculed. They're not convinced this is really a supernatural, but yet, even science hasn't provided any answers. I might be biased, but I think our study might be really the first attempt and then I'm sure, many more will follow.

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