Thursday, February 11, 2010

Is a gift of the Magi a cure for cancer?

Frankincense, the precious fragrance that was among the gifts that the wise men from the East brought to the infant Jesus, is now being studied intensely for its cancer-fighting properties. There's something in frankincense that compels cancerous cells to "reject" nuclei and reset back to what the normal governing gene sequence should be.

It's a very educational and intriguing read, especially if you've ever read the Christmas story out of the Bible and wondered what the heck frankincense is supposed to be :-)

(And although that painting has nothing to do with frankincense specifically, I'll give props to whoever can tell me the name of it, who painted it and what its historical significance is ;-)

at February 11, 2010

2 comments:

  1. Matt vanLieshout12:03 AM, February 13, 2010

    whoa! we JUST talked about this in my art history class! its by giotto di bondone, i think its called adoration of the magi. what's cool about it is that the star of bethlehem is actually halley's comet.

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  2. Chris Knight1:57 AM, February 13, 2010

    And it's Matt for the win!! :-)

    Yup, you got it. And that's the reason why the European Space Agency's probe to Halley's Comet in 1986 was named the Giotto mission (which gave us the first images ever of a comet's nucleus).

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