Physicist and physical cosmologist Stephen Hawking is able to utilize technology inspired by Star Trek to battle a motor neuron disease that is related to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis or Lou Gerhig's Disease. Although he has been unable to speak himself since 1985 he can communicate with a computer generated voice, work on a specially made computer and navigate on a motorized wheel chair.
Hawking even had a role in an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation.
Here he receives the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Obama in 2009.
Credit: White House
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