DNA science may help restore, preserve historic works, unmask counterfeits; The trait elite baseball hitters share with Leonardo da Vinci: A ‘quick eye’ with higher ‘frames per second’ — a function of training, genetics, or both?

A new study of the microbial settlers on old paintings, sculptures, and other forms of art charts a potential path for preserving, restoring, and confirming the geographic origin of some of humanity’s greatest treasures.

Genetics scientists with the J. Craig Venter Institute (JCVI), collaborating with the Leonardo da Vinci DNA Project and supported by the Richard Lounsbery Foundation, say identifying and managing communities of microbes on art may offer museums and collectors a new way to stem the deterioration of priceless possessions, and to unmask counterfeits in the $60 billion a year art market.

Manolito G. Torralba, Claire Kuelbs, Kelvin Jens Moncera, and Karen E. Nelson of the JCVI, La Jolla, California, and Rhonda Roby of the Alameda California County Sheriff’s Office Crime Laboratory, used small, dry polyester swabs to gently collect microbes from centuries-old, Renaissance-style art in a private collector’s home in Florence, Italy. Their findings are published in the journal Microbial Ecology .

The genetic detectives caution that additional time and research are needed to formally convict microbes as a culprit in artwork decay but consider their most interesting find to be “oxidase positive” microbes primarily on painted wood and canvas surfaces.

These species can dine on organic and inorganic compounds often found in paints, in glue, and in the cellulose in paper, canvas, and wood. Using oxygen for energy production, they can produce water or hydrogen peroxide, a chemical used in disinfectants and bleaches.

“Such byproducts are likely to influence the presence of mold and the overall rate of deterioration,” the paper says.

“Though prior studies have attempted to characterize the microbial composition associated with artwork decay, our results summarize the first large scale genomics-based study to understand the microbial communities associated with aging artwork.”

The study builds on an earlier one in which the authors compared hairs collected from people in the Washington D.C., and San Diego, CA. areas, finding that microbial signatures and patterns are geographically distinguishable.

In the art world context, studying microbes clinging to the surface of a work of art may help confirm its geographic origin and authenticity or identify counterfeits.

Lead author Manolito G. Torralba notes that, as art’s value continues to climb, preservation is increasingly important to museums and collectors alike, and typically involves mostly the monitoring and adjusting of lighting, heat, and moisture.

Adding genomics science to these efforts offers advantages of “immense potential.”

The study says microbial populations “were easily discernible between the different types of substrates sampled,” with those on stone and marble art more diverse than wood and canvas. This is “likely due to the porous nature of stone and marble harboring additional organisms and potentially moisture and nutrients, along with the likelihood of biofilm formation.”

As well, microbial diversity on paintings is likely lower because few organisms can metabolize the meagre nutrients offered by oil-based paint.

“Though our sample size is low, the novelty of our study has provided the art and scientific communities with evidence that microbial signatures are capable of differentiating artwork according to their substrate,” the paper says.

“Future studies would benefit from working with samples whose authorship, ownership, and care are well-documented, although documentation about care of works of art (e.g., whether and how they were cleaned) seems rare before the mid-twentieth century.”

“Of particular interest would be the presence and activity of oil-degrading enzymes. Such approaches will lead to fully understanding which organism(s) are responsible for the rapid decay of artwork while potentially using this information to target these organisms to prevent degradation.”

“Focusing on reducing the abundance of such destructive organisms has great potential in preserving and restoring important pieces of human history.”

Biology in Art

The paper was supported by the US-based Richard Lounsbery Foundation as part of its “biology in art” research theme, which has also included seed funding efforts to obtain and sequence the genome of Leonardo da Vinci.

The Leonardo da Vinci DNA Project involves scientists in France (where Leonardo lived during his final years and was buried), Italy (where his father and other relatives were buried, and descendants of his half-brothers still live), Spain (whose National Library holds 700 pages of his notebooks), and the US (where forensic DNA skills flourish).

The Leonardo project has convened molecular biologists, population geneticists, microbiologists, forensic experts, and physicians working together with other natural scientists and with genealogists, historians, artists, and curators to discover and decode previously inaccessible knowledge and to preserve cultural heritage.

Related news release: Leonardo da Vinci’s DNA: Experts unite to shine modern light on a Renaissance master http://bit.ly/2FG4jJu

Measuring Leonardo da Vinci’s “quick eye” 500 years later.

Could he have played major-league baseball?

Famous art historians and biographers such as Sir Kenneth Clark and Walter Isaacson have written about Leonardo da Vinci’s “quick eye” because of the way he accurately captured fleeting expressions, wings during bird flight, and patterns in swirling water. But until now no one had tried to put a number on this aspect of Leonardo’s extraordinary visual acuity.

David S. Thaler of the University of Basel, and a guest investigator in the Program for the Human Environment at The Rockefeller University, does, allowing comparison of Leonardo with modern measures. Leonardo fares quite well.

Thaler’s estimate hinges on Leonardo’s observation that the fore and hind wings of a dragonfly are out of phase — not verified until centuries later by slow motion photography (see e.g. https://youtu.be/Lw2dfjYENNE?t=44).

To quote Isaacson’s translation of Leonardo’s notebook: “The dragonfly flies with four wings, and when those in front are raised those behind are lowered.”

Thaler challenged himself and friends to try seeing if that’s true, but they all saw only blurs.

High-speed camera studies by others show the fore and hind wingbeats of dragonflies vary by 20 to 10 milliseconds — one fiftieth to one hundredth of a second — beyond average human perception.

Thaler notes that “flicker fusion frequency” (FFF) — akin to a motion picture’s frames per second — is used to quantify and measure “temporal acuity” in human vision.

When frames per second exceed the number of frames the viewer can perceive individually, the brain constructs the illusion of continuous movement. The average person’s FFF is between 20 to 40 frames per second; current motion pictures present 48 or 72 frames per second.

To accurately see the angle between dragonfly wings would require temporal acuity in the range of 50 to 100 frames per second.

Thaler believes genetics will account for variations in FFF among different species, which range from a low of 12 in some nocturnal insects to over 300 in Fire Beetles. We simply do not know what accounts for human variation. Training and genetics may both play important roles.

“Perhaps the clearest contemporary case for a fast flicker fusion frequency in humans is in American baseball, because it is said that elite batters can see the seams on a pitched baseball,” even when rotating 30 to 50 times per second with two or four seams facing the batter. A batter would need Leonardo-esque FFF to spot the seams on most inbound baseballs.

Thaler suggests further study to compare the genome of individuals and species with unusually high FFF, including, if possible, Leonardo’s DNA.

Flicker fusion for focus, attention, and affection

In a companion paper, Thaler describes how Leonardo used psychophysics that would only be understood centuries later — and about which a lot remains to be learned today — to communicate deep beauty and emotion.

Leonardo was master of a technique known as sfumato (the word derived from the Italian sfumare, “to tone down” or “to evaporate like smoke”), which describes a subtle blur of edges and blending of colors without sharp focus or distinct lines.

Leonardo expert Martin Kemp has noted that Leonardo’s sfumato sometimes involves a distance dependence which is akin to the focal plane of a camera. Yet, at other times, features at the same distance have selective sfumato so simple plane of focus is not the whole answer.

Thaler suggests that Leonardo achieved selective soft focus in portraits by painting in overcast or evening light, where the eyes’ pupils enlarge to let in more light but have a narrow plane of sharp focus.

To quote Leonardo’s notebook, under the heading “Selecting the light which gives most grace to faces”: “In the evening and when the weather is dull, what softness and delicacy you may perceive in the faces of men and women.”  In dim light pupils enlarge to let in more light but their depth of field decreases.

By measuring the size of the portrait’s pupils, Thaler inferred Leonardo’s depth of focus. He says Leonardo likely sensed this effect, perhaps unconsciously in the realm of his artistic sensibility. The pupil / aperture effect on depth of focus wasn’t explained until the mid-1800s, centuries after Leonardo’s birth in Vinci, Italy in 1452.

What about selective focus at equal distance? In this case Leonardo may have taken advantage of the fovea, the small area on the back of the eye where detail is sharpest.

Most of us move our eyes around and because of our slower flicker fusion frequency we construct a single 3D image of the world by jamming together many partially in-focus images. Leonardo realized and “froze” separate snapshots with which we construct ordinary perception.

Says Thaler: “We study Leonardo not only to learn about him but to learn about ourselves and further human potential.”

Thaler’s papers (at https://bit.ly/2WZ2cwo and https://bit.ly/2ZBj7Hi) evolved from talks at meetings of the Leonardo da Vinci DNA Project in Italy (2018), Spain and France (2019).

They form part of a collection of papers presented at a recent colloquium in Amboise, France, now being readied for publication in a book: Actes du Colloque International d’Amboise: Leonardo de Vinci, Anatomiste. Pionnier de l’Anatomie comparée, de la Biomécanique, de la Bionique et de la Physiognomonie. Edited by Henry de Lumley, President, Institute of Human Paleontology, Paris, and originally planned for release in late spring, 2020, publication was delayed by the global virus pandemic but should be available at CNRS Editions in the second half of the summer.

Other papers in the collection cover a range of topics, including how Leonardo used his knowledge of anatomy, gained by performing autopsies on dozens of cadavers, to achieve Mona Lisa’s enigmatic smile.

Leonardo also used it to exact revenge on academics and scientists who ridiculed him for lacking a classical education, sketching them with absurdly deformed faces to resemble birds, dogs, or goats.

De Lumley earlier co-authored a 72-page monograph for the Leonardo DNA Project: “Leonardo da Vinci: Pioneer of comparative anatomy, biomechanics and physiognomy.”.

* * * * *

Coverage highlights

5-MAY-2016

The Leonardo Project: Illuminating the art, life, characteristics, talents, and brilliance of one of humanity’s most extraordinary figures

A team of eminent specialists from a variety of academic disciplines has coalesced around a goal of creating new insight into the life and genius of Leonardo da Vinci by means of authoritative new research and modern detective technologies, including DNA science.

The Leonardo Project is in pursuit of several possible physical connections to Leonardo, beaming radar, for example, at an ancient Italian church floor to help corroborate extensive research to pinpoint the likely location of the tomb of his father and other relatives. A collaborating scholar also recently announced the successful tracing of several likely DNA relatives of Leonardo living today in Italy (see endnotes).

If granted the necessary approvals, the Project will compare DNA from Leonardo’s relatives past and present with physical remnants — hair, bones, fingerprints and skin cells — associated with the Renaissance figure whose life marked the rebirth of Western civilization.

The Project’s objectives, motives, methods, and work to date are detailed in a special issue of the journal Human Evolution, published coincident with a meeting of the group hosted in Florence this week under the patronage of Eugenio Giani, President of the Tuscan Regional Council (Consiglio Regionale della Toscana).

Born in Vinci, Italy, Leonardo died in 1519, age 67, and was buried in Amboise, southwest of Paris. His creative imagination foresaw and described innovations hundreds of years before their invention, such as the helicopter and armored tank. His artistic legacy includes the iconic Mona Lisa and The Last Supper.

The idea behind the Project, founded in 2014, has inspired and united anthropologists, art historians, genealogists, microbiologists, and other experts from leading universities and institutes in France, Italy, Spain, Canada and the USA, including specialists from the J. Craig Venter Institute of California, which pioneered the sequencing of the human genome.

The work underway resembles in complexity recent projects such as the successful search for the tomb of historic author Miguel de Cervantes and, in March 2015, the identification of England’s King Richard III from remains exhumed from beneath a UK parking lot, fittingly re-interred 500 years after his death.

Like Richard, Leonardo was born in 1452, and was buried in a setting that underwent changes in subsequent years such that the exact location of the grave was lost.

If DNA and other analyses yield a definitive identification, conventional and computerized techniques might reconstruct the face of Leonardo from models of the skull.”

In addition to Leonardo’s physical appearance, information potentially revealed from the work includes his ancestry and additional insight into his diet, state of health, personal habits, and places of residence.

Beyond those questions, and the verification of Leonardo’s “presumed remains” in the chapel of Saint-Hubert at the Château d’Amboise, the Project aims to develop a genetic profile extensive enough to understand better his abilities and visual acuity, which could provide insights into other individuals with remarkable qualities.

It may also make a lasting contribution to the art world, within which forgery is a multi-billion dollar industry, by advancing a technique for extracting and sequencing DNA from other centuries-old works of art, and associated methods of attribution.

Says Jesse Ausubel, Vice Chairman of the Richard Lounsbery Foundation, sponsor of the Project’s meetings in 2015 and 2016: “I think everyone in the group believes that Leonardo, who devoted himself to advancing art and science, who delighted in puzzles, and whose diverse talents and insights continue to enrich society five centuries after his passing, would welcome the initiative of this team — indeed would likely wish to lead it were he alive today.”

Leonardo’s fingerprints

In the journal, group members underline the highly conservative, precautionary approach required at every phase of the Project, which they aim to conclude in 2019 to mark the 500th anniversary of Leonardo’s death.

For example, one objective is to verify whether fingerprints on Leonardo’s paintings, drawings, and notebooks can yield DNA consistent with that extracted from identified remains.

Early last year, Project collaborators from the International Institute for Humankind Studies in Florence opened discussions with the laboratory in that city where Leonardo’s Adoration of the Magi has been undergoing restoration for nearly two years, to explore the possibility of analyzing dust from the painting for possible DNA traces. A crucial question is whether traces of DNA remain or whether restoration measures and the passage of time have obliterated all evidence of Leonardo’s touch.

In preparation for such analysis, a team from the J. Craig Venter Institute and the University of Florence is examining privately owned paintings believed to be of comparable age to develop and calibrate techniques for DNA extraction and analysis. At this year’s meeting in Florence, the researchers also described a pioneering effort to analyze the microbiome of a painting thought to be about five centuries old.

If human DNA can one day be obtained from Leonardo’s work and sequenced, the genetic material could then be compared with genetic information from skeletal or other remains that may be exhumed in the future.

Organizations participating in the Leonardo Project include:

• The Institut de Paléontologie Humaine, Paris
• The International Institute for Humankind Studies, Florence
• The Laboratory of Molecular Anthropology and Paleogenetics, Biology Department, University of Florence
• Museo Ideale Leonardo da Vinci, in Vinci, Italy
• J. Craig Venter Institute, La Jolla, California
• Laboratory of Genetic Identification, University of Granada, Spain
• The Rockefeller University, New York City

Initial support comes from the Richard Lounsbery Foundation, Washington D.C.

Says Eugenio Giani, President of the Regional Council of Tuscany: “The fact that a team of eminent scholars from different academic disciplines and parts of the world has united with the common objective of furthering investigation into one of the greatest geniuses is positive and very important.”

“As President of the Tuscan Regional Council, I am pleased to host in our headquarters a meeting that shows key aspects our current state of knowledge of Leonardo da Vinci. My hope, as a Florentine and Tuscan, is that all this will help outline a portrait of Leonardo as faithful as possible to reality, bringing out the true bond that he had with Florence, starting from the properties of his family in the city. Scientifically, the chance to create, through new research and technology, a new vision of the life of Leonardo starting from a study of DNA is very important.”

Compiled by Project collaborator Claire Stypulkowski, the collection of five journal articles trace the path Leonardo took from his Italian birthplace to his final days serving the King of France. They outline the efforts to date, detailing the history and evidence regarding Leonardo’s life and his remains in Amboise, the research and high-tech investigation of his father’s tomb in Florence, and the tracing of family descendants.

Says Brunetto Chiarelli of the International Institute for Humankind Studies and editor of Human Evolution: “We are proud to share with the public the details of this exciting endeavor.”

And he underlined this message from the Project’s introductory paper: “The search for Leonardo’s remains at Amboise Castle, for the remains or traces of his family members in Florence, Vinci, and Milan, and for traces of his DNA in his works is fraught with difficulty.”

“Matching Leonardo’s DNA to that of his family presents puzzles that are minutely specific to their history and circumstances, but the tools the investigators use are generic and broadly applicable. We stand to gain not only greater historical knowledge of Leonardo but possibly a reconstruction of his genetic profile, which could provide insights into other individuals with remarkable qualities.”

“The last Plantagenet King of England and the author who gave us Don Quixote are two whose places in history are somewhat better documented now through recent anthropological study. Is Leonardo the next?”

###

The Leonardo Project,” a special edition of the journal Human Evolution, is publicly available here: http://bit.ly/1T2bbk1

About the authors:

• Jesse Ausubel, Director of the Program for the Human Environment at The Rockefeller University, New York City, is Vice-Chairman of the Richard Lounsbery Foundation. He has co-founded major global research programs including the Census of Marine Life (2000-2010) and the Deep Carbon Observatory (2009 – 2019).
• Ross King is the author of five books on Italian art and history, including Leonardo and The Last Supper (2012) and Florence: The Paintings and Frescoes, 1250-1743 (2015).
• Anne Leader is an art historian and the author of The Badia of Florence: Art and Observance in a Renaissance Monastery (2012).
• Serena Minucci is a geophysicist with the Laboratory of Applied Geophysics at the Centro di GeoTecnologie (CGT), University of Siena
• Tommaso Colonna is Director of the Laboratory of Geophysics and Applied Geophysics, Centro di GeoTecnologie (CGT), University of Siena
• Alessandro Vezzosi is an Art Critic and Leonardo Scholar, and Founder and Director of Museo Ideale Leonardo da Vinci, in Vinci, Italy. On April 15, Mr. Vezzosi and colleagues released “The Family Tree of the Family Da Vinci from the 14th to the 21st Century (© Museo Ideale – Alessandro Vezzosi — Agnese Sabato),” announcing the names of 35 of Leonardo’s living relations, identified through 43 years of multi-disciplinary research. Leonardo had no known offspring but other direct descendants from his father would share Leonardo’s DNA, even 15 generations later.

Leonardo Project, 2nd Meeting Invitees, Tuscany Regional Council Building, Florence

• Jesse Ausubel, Director, Program for the Human Environment, The Rockefeller University; Vice Chairman, Richard Lounsbery Foundation
• Leonardo Belloni, President, Associazione Opera Italia
• Niccolò Cadeo, Architect
• Pietro Cadeo, Director, CadeoArchitettura
• David Caramelli, Full Professor of Anthropology, Department of Biology, Molecular Anthropology/Paleogenetics Unit, University of Florence
• Brunetto Chiarelli, Director of the International Institute for Humankind Studies; retired Professor of Anthropology, University of Florence
• Henry de Lumley, Director, Institut de Paléontologie Humaine
• Eugenio Giani, Presidente del Consiglio Regionale della Toscana
• Martina Lari, Assistant Professor, Department of Biology, Molecular Anthropology/Paleogenetics Unit, University of Florence
• Anne Leader, Art Historian, Writer
• Jose A. Lorente, Full Professor of Legal & Forensic Medicine, University of Granada and Scientific Director of GENYO – Centre for Genomics and Oncological Research
• Cristina Manetti, Press Relations Officer, Consiglio Regionale della Toscana
• Cesare Marchetti, Research Scholar, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Laxenburg, Austria
• Karen Nelson, President, J. Craig Venter Institute
• Elsa Pacciani, Anthropologist, Soprintendenza Archeologia della Toscana
• Andrea Pelizzari, Architect
• Guido Pelizzari, Architect
• Elena Pilli, Forensic Biologist, Department of Biology, Molecular Anthropology/Paleogenetics Unit, University of Florence
• Rhonda Roby, Professor, J. Craig Venter Institute and Head of Forensic Genomics at Human Longevity, Inc.
• Giovanni Roncaglia, Assistant Archaeologist, Soprintendenza Archeologia della Toscana
• Agnese Sabato, President of Associazione Internazionale Leonardo da Vinci-Museo Ideale
• Thomas Sakmar, Richard M. & Isabel P. Furlaud Professor, Laboratory of Chemical Biology & Signal Transduction, The Rockefeller University
• Claire Stypulkowski, Florence Coordinator, Leonardo Project
• Alessandro Vezzosi, Art Critic and Leonardo Scholar, Founder and Director of Museo Ideale Leonardo da Vinci, Vinci
• Luigi Vigna, Funzionario Restauratore Conservatore, Docente OPD SAFS – Direzione Tecnica Settore Restauro Archeologico – Conservazione Arte Contemporanea , Opificio delle Pietre Dure di Firenze
• Fulvia Zeuli, Architetto Direttore Coordinatore presso Ministero per i Beni Culturali, Soprintendenza Belle Arti e Paesaggio per le Province di Firenze,Pistoia e Prato

Leonardo Project, 1st Meeting Attendees, Natural History Museum, Florence, May 5, 2015

• Jesse Ausubel, Director, Program for the Human Environment, The Rockefeller University
• David Caramelli, Professor of Anthropology, Department of Biology, Molecular Anthropology/Paleogenetics Unit, University of Florence
• Guido Chelazzi, President of the Natural History Museum, University of Florence and Full Professor of Ecology
• Brunetto Chiarelli, Retired Professor of Anthropology and Founder of the International Institute for Humankind Studies
• Massimo Cocchi, Professor of Food and Nutrition Sciences, Department of Veterinary Medical Sciences, University of Bologna, Italy, and Full Professor of Biochemistry of Nutrition at the Università L.U.de.S., Lugano, Switzerland
• Tommaso Colonna, Laboratory of Geophysics and Applied Geophysics at the Centro di GeoTecnologie (CGT), University of Siena
• Eugenio Giani, Councillor, Partito Democratico (Democratic Party), Regione Toscana
• Ross King, Art Historian and author
• Anne Leader, Art Historian, Writer
• Jose A. Lorente, Full Professor of Legal & Forensic Medicine, University of Granada and Scientific Director of GENYO – Centre for Genomics and Oncological Research
• Cesare Marchetti, Research Scholar, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Laxenburg, Austria
• Serena Minucci, Laboratory of Geophysics and Applied Geophysics at the Centro di GeoTecnologie (CGT), University of Siena
• Karen Nelson, President, J. Craig Venter Institute
• Elsa Pacciani, Anthropologist, Soprintendenza Archeologia della Toscana
• Rhonda Roby, Professor, J. Craig Venter Institute and Head of Forensic Genomics at Human Longevity, Inc.
• Giovanni Roncaglia, Assistant Archaeologist, Soprintendenza Archeologia della Toscana
• Thomas Sakmar, Richard M. & Isabel P. Furlaud Professor, Laboratory of Chemical Biology & Signal Transduction, The Rockefeller University
• Riccardo Simoni, Psychiatrist
• Claire Stypulkowski, Florence Coordinator, Leonardo Project
• Alessandro Vezzosi, Art critic and Leonardo scholar, founder and director of Museo Ideale Leonardo da Vinci, Vinci
• Agnese Sabato, President of Associazione Internazionale Leonardo da Vinci-Museo Ideale

News release in full: click here

Example coverage:

BBC World Service, Newshour

Newswires / syndicated stories

ANSA,  Italy, Caccia al Dna di Leonardo, indizi in tombe e dipinti (Hunt DNA of Leonardo, clues in tombs and paintings), click here; (Portuguese): Grupo quer usar DNA de Da Vinci para entender mente de gênio, click here

Press Association, UK, via the Daily Mirror, Experts hope to extract Leonardo Da Vinci’s DNA from fingerprints in his paintings and notebooks, click here

Europa Press, Spain, Eminencias de distintas disciplinas se unen para esclarecer el talento y las características de Leonardo da Vinci, click here

Agencia EFE, Spain (Spanish), Investigadores Quieren El Adn De Leonardo Da Vinci Para Reconstruir Al Genio (Researchers Want The Dna Of Leonardo Da Vinci To Rebuild The Genius), click here

(Portuguese): Cientistas querem DNA de Da Vinci para “reconstruir” características do gênio, click here

IndoAsian News Service, India, DNA to decode life and genius of Leonardo da Vinci, click here

Xinhua News Service, China [科技与新知]用ＤＮＡ破解“达芬奇密码” (With Technology New Knowledge, DNA, crack “The Da Vinci Code”), click here 

Other news organizations

Daily Telegraph, UK, Leonardo da Vinci paintings analysed for DNA to solve grave mystery, click here

International Business Times, UK, Da Vinci’s DNA: Leonardo Project to reveal secrets of Renaissance master, click here

Daily Mail, UK, The REAL da Vinci code: DNA from the Italian master’s paintings will being used to reconstruct his face and trace his relatives, click here

The Independent, UK, Researchers plan to sequence Leonardo da Vinci’s DNA to reveal his true face, click here

Gizmodo, USA, The Brilliantly Insane Plan to Reconstruct Leonardo da Vinci’s Genome, click here

Newser, USA, Scientists Have Big Plans for da Vinci’s DNA But first, they need to find, click here

Ideal, Spain, A por el ADN de Leonardo, click here

Huffington Post, Greece, Ο (γενετικός) κώδικας Ντα Βίντσι: Έρευνα με σύγχρονη τεχνολογία και επιστήμη DNA πάνω στη ζωή του Λεονάρντο ντα Βίντσι (The (genetic) code Da Vinci: Research with modern technology and DNA science on the life of Leonardo da Vinci), click here

Republika Online, Indonesia, Ilmuwan Selidiki Kejeniusan Manusia dari DNA Leonardo da Vinci (Scientists Investigate Human genius of Leonardo da Vinci DNA), click here

KIJK, Netherlands Antilles, Op jacht naar DNA van Leonardo da Vinci (Hunting for DNA Leonardo da Vinci), click here

Bao Mới, Viet Nam, Gian nan săn tìm DNA của danh họa Leonardo da Vinci (Arduous hunt for DNA of artist Leonardo da Vinci), click here

Go News, Italy (translated from the UK Press Association), Si cerca il dna del genio Leonardo tra tombe e dipenti (Looking for the DNA of the Leonardo genius among graves and descendants), click here

Giani: “Alla scoperta del vero legame tra Leonardo e Firenze” (Giani: “Discovering the real link between Leonardo and Florence”), click here

CNO Web-TV, Italy, Il “Leonardo da Vinci Project” e lo studio del DNA di Leonardo, click here

Arte Magazine, Italy, Leonardo da Vinci. Studiosi alla ricerca del Dna del genio (Leonardo da Vinci. Scholars in search of Genius DNA), click here

Nove da Firenze, Italy, Lunedì mattina a palazzo Panciatichi il “Leonardo da Vinci Project” (Monday morning palace Panciatichi the “Leonardo da Vinci Project”), click here

Popular Archeology, USA, Leonardo da Vinci’s DNA, click here

Medical Daily, USA, DNA Model Could Reveal Details About Leonardo da Vinci’s Life, Even Lead To Facial Reconstruction, click here

Coverage summary, click here