By Jacopo Prisco, CNN

(CNN) — Since the mysterious deaths of a husband and wife in the Medici family, a powerful Italian dynasty that ruled Florence and Tuscany almost uninterruptedly from 1434 to 1737, rumors have swirled about what led to the couple’s untimely demise. Now, scientists believe they have an answer — it wasn’t murder, but malaria.

In 1587, Grand Duke Francesco I de’ Medici and his wife, Bianca Cappello, died within hours of each other after days of agony.

At the time, logic dictated the culprit to be malaria because the couple had shown symptoms of the illness, including a telltale intermittent fever. But rumors of an assassination immediately spread, pointing to Francesco’s younger brother and rival, Ferdinando, as the perpetrator.

Ferdinando was next in line to the throne, but he was at risk of being passed over in favor of Francesco’s illegitimate son, Antonio. What’s more, Ferdinando had visited the grand duke and his wife at their residence just before they fell ill, further bolstering the suspicion that he poisoned them with arsenic to ensure his own rise to power.

The couple fell ill in a Medici villa in Poggio a Caiano, near Florence, an area dotted with marshes and rice fields — ideal habitats for mosquitoes that can carry malaria. Nonetheless, the murder rumors endured, likely aided by the Medici family’s history of murder and assassination attempts.

Since 2004, when exhumation and analysis of skeletal remains began for 49 Medici family tombs as part of the Medici Project, various studies have confirmed malaria as the cause of Francesco’s demise. However, other studies published as recently as 2006 used toxicological investigations to determine that the couple were indeed victims of arsenic poisoning,

A new study jointly conducted by the University of Pisa in Tuscany and Yale University used DNA extracted from the skeletal remains of Francesco and another one of his brothers, Giovanni, in an attempt to settle the debate once and for all.

“In recent years, we tried to solve this mystery by performing some specific analysis, in particular paleo-immunological analysis, which attested to the presence of malaria in the remains. But the rumors would not stop, because paleo-immunology is not resolutive, and only ancient DNA could give an answer with a high degree of certainty,” said Valentina Giuffra, a professor of history of medicine at the University of Pisa and a coauthor of the study, published in June in the journal iScience.

Paleo-immunology uses antigens, substances that trigger an immune response, or proteins to check for traces of disease in ancient remains. DNA analysis, which is a more recent approach, is more definitive because it looks for direct genetic signatures of a disease.

Giuffra and her colleagues found genetic traces of plasmodium, the parasitic protozoa responsible for malaria, in samples of bone material from Francesco’s ribs. “DNA is certain,” Giuffra said. “It solves the problem and the doubts. I think this is a definitive answer.”

Two species of malaria

Malaria

By Ivana Kottasová, CNN

(CNN) — Russia’s grip on its gateway to the Black Sea is slipping after a series of Ukrainian attacks forced Moscow to suspend traffic through the key waterway this week, limiting the Kremlin’s ability to trade with the rest of the world.

The development marks a major reversal of fortunes for Russia as the Azov Sea was for years out of Kyiv’s reach, providing Russia with a convenient staging ground for attacks against Ukraine and linking vast swaths of southern Russia with the world’s oceans.

But recent advances in Ukraine’s drone program have changed this. Robert Brovdi, the commander of Ukraine’s ‌drone forces, said on Wednesday that Kyiv had hit 116 Russian vessels in the Sea of Azov in just the past nine days – a sharp increase.

Previously, strikes against Russian ships were mostly limited to the shadow fleet and military vessels. CNN cannot independently verify Brovdi’s claim, but videos of some of the recent strikes shared by Ukrainian officials show direct hits.

The relentless attacks have forced Russia to suspend traffic through the Azov Sea by shutting down the two chokepoints in its corners: the Don-Azov Channel, which connects the sea to inland waterways, and the Kerch Strait, which links it to the Black Sea.

Satellite images and vessel-tracking services show long queues of ships waiting on both sides of the sea.

Ukraine has been increasingly successful in targeting Russia’s shadow fleet of oil tankers carrying sanctioned fuel, but blockading the Sea of Azov could have a wider impact, including on exports that have not been subject to sanctions, like wheat or sunflower oil.

The Institute for the Study of War, a US-based conflict monitor, said on Tuesday that the Ukrainian strikes in the Sea of Azov “represent a new phase in Ukraine’s efforts to isolate occupied Crimea from the Russian logistics network and to disrupt Russian seaborne shipping routes, especially for petroleum products and grain.”

Russia is the world’s largest grain exporter, accounting for about one fifth of global wheat exports, according to the US Department of Agriculture’s Foreign Agricultural Service.

About a quarter of Russia’s wheat exports is shipped through the Sea of Azov, according to Andrey Sizov, a leading Black Sea agricultural markets analyst.

“The Black Sea for (the) wheat market is similar to what the Persian Gulf means for the crude market. (The) Black Sea is by far the biggest supplier of wheat to the global market,” he said, adding that if the situation continues, Russia’s economic losses could climb into billions of dollars.

Prices of wheat futures, a key indicator of traders’ expectations, have jumped in recent days, partly because of the Azov Sea crisis. Russia claims it can bypass the Sea of Azov and reroute all of its grain exports via other terminals in the Black Sea, but Sizov said this would not be possible during the peak season when Russia’s total grain exports far exceed the capacity of those ports.

Russia, which has regularly targeted Ukrainian civilian infrastructure,

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