Authors:Eddie Holmes
Media: Nature News & Views
Date: October 2011
The Black Death was one of the most devastating pandemics in human history. The first complete genome sequence of the causative Yersinia pestis bacterium provides a fresh perspective on plague evolution.
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Authors:Ewen Callaway
Media: Nature News
Date: October 2011
The genome of a 660-year-old bacterium is revealing secrets from one of Europe’s darkest chapters.
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Authors:Nicholas Wade
Media: The New York Times
Date: October 2011
After the Black Death reached London in 1348, some 2,400 people were buried in East Smithfield, near the Tower of London, in a cemetery that had been prepared for the plague’s arrival. From the teeth of four of those victims, researchers have now reconstructed the full DNA of a microbe that within five years felled one- third to one-half of the population of Western Europe.
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Other media stories about this study:
Black Death genetic code cracked in work led by Canadian scientists
Researchers trace the roots of Europe’s Black Death plague
Black Death genome sequenced from 14th century DNA
Scientists sequence the full Black Death genome and find the mother of all plagues
Black Death Genetic Code “built”
Black Death Genome Revealed
Authors: Nicholas Wade
Media: The New York Times
Date: August 2011
An analysis of 30,000-year-old bacteria whose DNA has been recovered from the Yukon permafrost shows that they were able to resist antibiotics.
Antibiotics, before they became used as drugs, were natural products. The new finding is the first direct evidence that antibiotic resistance is a widespread natural phenomenon that preceded the modern medical use of antibiotics.
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Authors:Nicholas Wade
Media: The New York Times
Date: August 2011
Hunting for a Mass Killer in Medieval Graveyards
Beneath the Royal Mint Court, diagonally across the street from the Tower of London, lie 1,800 mute witnesses to the foresight of the city fathers in the year 1348. Recognizing that the Black Death then scourging Europe would inevitably reach London, the authorities prepared a special cemetery in East Smithfield, outside the city walls, to receive the bodies of the stricken.
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Other media stories about this study:
Molecular Clues Hint at What Really Cause the Black Death
Black Death bacteria identified
