encil

NICOSIA, Cyprus (Reuter) --

A year-long study into a mysterious outbreak of black spots on hundreds of Cypriot schoolchildren has discovered a cure -- don't jab yourself with a pencil.

``These spots contain residues of substances in pencils used by schoolchildren,'' Professor Dionysis Tsambaou of the University of Patra, Greece, said Wednesday.

The spots afflicting faces and hands contained the same compounds as pencils, he said: ``It is simply the penetration of substances under the skin which do not cause any health problem whatsoever.''

The marks, first noted last year among children, teachers and cleaners at an elementary school in a village on the outskirts of Nicosia, had baffled doctors.

``They could have been there before, just that nobody noticed them,'' Tsambaou said.

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