Stephen Hawking, Scientist | featured news

British scientist Stephen Hawking has decoded some of the most puzzling mysteries of the universe but he has left one mystery unsolved: How he has managed to survive so long with such a crippling disease. The physicist and cosmologist was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig's disease when he was a 21-year-old student at Cambridge University. Most people die within a few years of the diagnosis, called motor neurone disease in the U.K. On Sunday, Hawking will turn 70.

Physicist Stephen Hawking believes there is no afterlife, and that the concept of heaven is a "fairy story" for people who fear death.

Eminent scientist said to be very ill in Cambridge hospital.