To investigate the male genetic legacy of the Arab rule in southern Europe during medieval times, we focused on specific Northwest African haplogroups and identified evolutionary close STR-defined haplotypes in Iberia, Sicily and the Italian peninsula. Our results point to a higher recent Northwest African contribution in Iberia and Sicily in agreement with historical data. southern Italian regions known to have experienced long-term Arab presence also show an enrichment of Northwest African types. The forensic and genomic implications of these findings are discussed.

We report an unusual suicide, committed with a common pencil. A 72-year-old male inflicted himself a penetrating thoracic wound while being hospitalized for a hip prosthesis operation. Although the patient was immediately operated, the cardiac injury appeared to be fatal. Cases of suicidal penetrating wounds of the anterior chest wall are rare and they are mostly inflicted by knives, glass fragments, or other sharp instruments. The potential danger of a pencil should be taken into consideration, especially in psychiatric hospitals and imprisonment facilities. We examined the legislation in Italy and Finland concerning the regulation of privacy in special care institutions.

Pure ankle dislocation is a rare event that primarily results from high-energy trauma. Predisposing anatomical factors such as talar hypoplasia, ligament laxity, and previous sprains may play a key role. This report presents the case of a 55-year-old man with fatal anterior and posterior tibial artery tears following a pure anterolateral dislocation of the right ankle. To the best of our knowledge, no such cases have previously been reported in the English-language literature.