Tuesday, December 11th, 2007


London: Leonardo Da Vinci may have had an Arab heritage, according to Italian researchers who studied the Renaissance artist’s fingerprint found on one of his famous masterpieces.
The researchers at the University of Chieti dicovered the print, taken from the artist’s left index finger, after an exhaustive three-year trawl through his works, ‘The Daily Telegraph’ reported on Saturday. “The central whorl of the fingerprint is a common pattern in the Middle East. Around 60% of the Middle Eastern population have the same structure,” lead researcher Pro
fessor Luigi Capasso was quoted as saying. The revelation will give weight to the increasingly popular academic theory that Da Vinci’s mother, Caterina, was a slave who came to Tuscany from Istanbul.
Almost nothing is left of Da Vinci, or his family. After his death in 1519, his remains were dispersed in a series of religious wars. In fact, the discovery of the fingerprint came after three years of scrutinizing 52 manuscripts and paintings attributed to the artist. Using the latest spectral scanning technology, the team found more than 200 prints, but only one specimen.

Imagine something that disgusts you and at the same time saves millions of lives.

Yes! you guessed it right! I am talking about the NATURE’S BLOODY SUCKERS.

Leeches present in front of us a huge spectrum of usage. It is mainly used to treat circulatory disorders. Like a landlords, it has occupied an influential place in the doctor’s medical kit.

When leech bites a victim, it’s saliva makes blood flow to increase and prevent clotting. This is because of the Platelet aggregators and coagulation inhibitors which are present in it’s saliva. So what happens when he bites? The oxygenated blood enters the wound area until veins re-grow and regains circulation.

While doing microsurgery, the doctors often come across situations where, they face the difficulties of reattaching minute veins.

Here is a real case:

Ears have such tiny veins that, in the past, no one was able to successfully reattach them. Then, in 1985, a Harvard physician was having great difficulty in reattaching the ear of a five-year-old child; the tiny veins kept clotting. He decided to use leeches and the ear was saved.

So people before turning your face away from leeches…Think about it!!