The Black Death was one of the deadliest pandemics in history, but its origins have long been mysterious. Now the bacteria that started it all may have been found
one of the deadliest pandemics in history
When a genetic family tree is drawn up of plague bacteria from historical graves as well as those infecting people and animals today, the Kyrgyzstan grave pathogens seem to be the most recent common ancestor of the other groups. “They are the strain that gave rise to the majority of strains that are circulating in the world today,” saysat the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. “It’s really like the big bang of plague.
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