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A UK heart surgeon has pioneered a new way to repair damaged hearts after being inspired by artist Leonardo da Vinci’s medical drawings.

The intricate diagrams of the heart were made by Leonardo 500 years ago.

Mr Francis Wells from Papworth Hospital, Cambridge, says Leonardo’s observations of the way the heart valves open and close was revelatory.

Mr Wells has used this understanding to modify current repair operations, and has successfully treated 80 patients.

The drawings allowed him to work out how to restore normal opening and closing function of the mitral valve, one of the four valves in the heart.

Until now, surgeons have repaired a floppy valve by narrowing its diameter. However, this can restrict the blood flow further when the individual is exercising and working their heart to the maximum.

Mr Wells said: “It’s a complete rethink of the way we do the mitral valve operation.

“What Leonardo was saying about the shape of the valve is important. It means that we can repair this valve in a better way.”

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The Typetester is an online application for comparison of the fonts for the screen. Its’ primary role is to make web designer’s life easier. As the new fonts are bundled into operating systems, the list of the common fonts will be updated.

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The objective of this blog is to find an important government job occupied by a person with no apparent qualifications other than strong personal, political, or business ties to a member of the administration.

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On Sept. 9, the Labor Department issued a short memo, signed by a lowly deputy assistant secretary, that undid the law of the land, ostensibly to deal with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. The memo relieved new federal contractors of the obligation to have a plan for hiring minorities, women, Vietnam veterans and disabled people on Katrina-related projects. The suspension is for three months, “subject to an extension should special interests in the national interest so require.”

The department’s explanation – that reducing paperwork will encourage more companies to help with rebuilding – is disingenuous in the extreme. Companies do not need to have an affirmative action plan in place to bid for or win federal contracts. Under normal rules, they have 120 days from the start of a contract to draw up a plan, which is primarily intended to help companies self-monitor their adherence to laws against discrimination. Obviously, if four months is not enough time under the present extraordinary circumstances, the department could extend the deadline. There is no good reason to suspend the rule outright.

The department also insists that waiving the requirement for a written plan does not relieve companies from obeying the laws against discrimination. At best, that is wishful thinking. When the department audits a company on its compliance with antidiscrimination laws, the company’s own affirmative action plan is the auditor’s starting point. By not requiring a plan, the department undermines its role as enforcer and telegraphs its laxity.

Cheating is a function of opportunity. Unintentional disregard for the law is often rooted in official inattention. The waiver of the affirmative action plan rule is bound to foster both. That is why such waivers have been extraordinarily rare; there have been only four in the 40 years that the law has been on the books, and each was for a single, highly-specialized short-term contract, including two in the 1980′s for federally financed work on commemorative coins. To waive the rule on a project as vast as rebuilding the Gulf Coast is as unwise as it is unprecedented.

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The number of Iraqi battalions capable of combat without U.S. support has dropped from three to one, the top American commander in Iraq told Congress Thursday, prompting Republicans to question whether U.S. troops will be able to withdraw next year.

Woogle creates image messages from Google Image search. Use some of your favourite phrases, but to start you off, “love is blind” [NSFW!]

This image of a peppercorn and a grain of salt taken by David McCarthy is the overall winner (and close-up category winner) in this year’s Visions of Science Photographic Awards. The competition is sponsored by Novartis and The Daily Telegraph. (�David McCarthy)

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Giving all honor, thanks and praises to God for courage and wisdom, this is a very important rally. I’d like to thank you for allowing me to share my thoughts, feelings and concerns regarding a tremendous problem that we are currently facing. This problem is universal, transcending race, economic background, religion, and culture, and this problem is none other than the current administration which has set up shop in the White House.

In fact, I’d like to take some of these cats on a field trip. I want to get big yellow buses with no air conditioner and no seatbelts and round up Bill O’Reilly, Pat Buchanan, Trent Lott, Sean Hannity, Dick Cheney, Jeb Bush, Bush Jr. and Bush Sr., John Ashcroft, Giuliani, Ed Gillespie, Katherine Harris, that little bow-tied Tucker Carlson and any other right-wing conservative Republicans I can think of, and take them all on a trip to the ‘hood. Not to do no 30-minute documentary. I mean, I want to drop them off and leave them there, let them become one with the other side of the tracks, get them four mouths to feed and no welfare, have scare tactics run through them like a laxative, criticizing them for needing assistance.

I’d show them working families that make too much to receive welfare but not enough to make ends meet. I’d employ them with jobs with little security, let them know how it feels to be an employee at will, able to be fired at the drop of a hat. I’d take away their opportunities, then try their children as adults, sending their 13-year-old babies to life in prison. I’d sell them dreams of hopelessness while spoon-feeding their young with a daily dose of inferior education. I’d tell them no child shall be left behind, then take more money out of their schools, tell them to show and prove themselves on standardized exams testing their knowledge on things that they haven’t been taught, and then I’d call them inferior.

I’d soak into their interior notions of endless possibilities. I’d paint pictures of assisted productivity if they only agreed to be all they can be, dress them up with fatigues and boots with promises of pots of gold at the end of rainbows, free education to waste terrain on those who finish their bid. Then I’d close the lid on that barrel of fool’s gold by starting a war, sending their children into the midst of a hostile situation, and while they’re worried about their babies being murdered and slain in foreign lands, I’d grace them with the pain of being sick and unable to get medicine.

Give them health benefits that barely cover the common cold. John Q. would become their reality as HMOs introduce them to the world of inferior care, filling their lungs with inadequate air, penny pinching at the expense of patients, doctors practicing medicine in an intricate web of rationing and regulations. Patients wander the maze of managed bureaucracy, costs rise and quality quickly deteriorates, but they say that managed care is cheaper. They’ll say that free choice in medicine will defeat the overall productivity, and as co-payments are steadily rising, I’ll make their grandparents have to choose between buying their medicine and paying their rent.

Then I’d feed them hypocritical lines of being pro-life as the only Christian way to be. Then very contradictingly, I’d fight for the spread of the death penalty, as if thou shall not kill applies to babies but not to criminals.

Then I’d introduce them to those sworn to protect and serve, creating a curb in their trust in the law. I’d show them the nightsticks and plungers, the pepper spray and stun guns, the mace and magnums that they’d soon become acquainted with, the shakedowns and illegal search and seizures, the planted evidence, being stopped for no reason. Harassment ain’t even the half of it. Forty-one shots to two raised hands, cell phones and wallets that are confused with illegal contrabands. I’d introduce them to pigs who love making their guns click like wine glasses. Everlasting targets surrounded by bullets, making them a walking bull’s eye, a living piñata, held at the mercy of police brutality, and then we’ll see if they finally weren’t aware of the truth, if their eyes weren’t finally open like a box of Pandora.

I’d show them how the other side of the tracks carries the weight of the world on our shoulders and how society seems to be holding us down with the force of a boulder. The bird of democracy flew the coop back in Florida. See, for some, and justice comes in packs like wolves in sheep’s clothing. T.K.O.’d by the right hooks of life, many are left staggering under the weight of the day, leaning against the ropes of hope. When your dreams have fallen on barren ground, it becomes difficult to keep pushing yourself forward like a train, administering pain like a doctor with a needle, their sequels continue more lethal than injections.

They keep telling us all is equal. I’d tell them that instead of giving tax breaks to the rich, financing corporate mergers and leading us into unnecessary wars and under-table dealings with Enron and Halliburton, maybe they can work on making society more peaceful. Instead, they take more and more money out of inner city schools, give up on the idea of rehabilitation and build more prisons for poor people. With unemployment continuing to rise like a deficit, it’s no wonder why so many think that crime pays.

Maybe this trip will make them see the error of their ways. Or maybe next time, we’ll just all get out and vote. And as far as their stay in the White House, tell them that numbered are their days.�?