You'll have to hack into victorian motorbike and car license database for me but theres a cute little rattus australis here http://smh.com.au/news/0201/12/national/national13.html Soldering on: laser fusion changes microsurgery Sew far so good ... Professor Owen with leg-transplant rat. Photo: Nick Moir By Claire O'Rourke A new technique to join body tissue without stitches looks likely to revolutionise microsurgical procedures, reducing the time needed to perform operations. Clinical trials of laser solder fusion, led by an Australian surgeon, Earl Owen, will begin this year. If the attempts are successful, the method would radically change microsurgery, which is used to rejoin and transplant limbs, reverse vasectomies and restore severed nerves. Professor Owen, the medical director of the Microsearch Foundation of Australia, said the time taken to join an artery would be reduced from 45 minutes to two using the new technique, with less scarring and trauma. "It's an enormous advance to pop on a solder and cure it with a laser beam in a matter of seconds," he said. The technique involves welding tissues together using strips of protein fused by laser. It has been tested on rats, rabbits, sheep, pigs and greyhounds over the past five years. Today marks two years since the first double hand transplant, on 33-year-old Frenchman Denis Chatelier. Mr Chatelier, who suffered the injuries when a home-made firework exploded, now has the co-ordination to make toys with his new hands. "These people have convinced themselves long before [they have the operation] that they must have their body part restored," Professor Owen said. Eleven people have had hand transplants in France, Italy, Austria, the US, China and Malaysia, with the success of the world's first hand transplant patient, Clint Hallam, paving the way for double hand transplants. Hallam had the limb amputated in February last year, after he stopped taking anti-rejection medication. He is the only patient to have a transplanted hand removed. But all was not lost when Hallam refused to continue his medication. Doctors were able to study the effects of rejection and how it can be anticipated. As part of ongoing research, white rats are transplanted with limbs from black rats because they are the least compatible, enabling more effective testing of anti-rejection, or immunosuppressive, drugs. Based in Lane Cove, the Microsearch Foundation of Australia is funded entirely by donation, and has never received government assistance since it started 25 years ago. "We don't get funded anything like we should ... as we're a small country with too much excellence than the Government can support," Professor Owen said. If they reverse my vasectomy faustine and I...