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Scientists used the degraded strands to reconstruct the entire genetic code of the deadly bacterium. It is the first time experts have succeeded in drafting the genome of an ancient pathogen, or disease-causing agent. The researchers found that a specific strain of the plague bug Yersinia pestis caused the pandemic that killed 100 million Europeans - between 30 per cent and 50 per cent of the total population - in just five years between 1347 and 1351. They also learned that the strain is the "mother" of all modern bubonic plague bacteria. "Every outbreak across the globe today stems from...

A team of German and Canadian scientists has shown that today's plague pathogen has been around at least 600 years. The Black Death claimed the lives of one-third of Europeans in just five years from 1348 to 1353. Until recently, it was not certain whether the bacterium Yersinia pestis -- known to cause the plague today -- was responsible for that most deadly outbreak of disease ever. Now, the University of Tübingen's Institute of Scientific Archaeology and McMaster University in Canada have been able to confirm that Yersinia pestis was behind the great plague... Previous genetic tests indicating that the...

Officials in Boulder County, Colo., announced last week that a pet cat and a dead squirrel tested positive for the bubonic plague. The cat’s owner took it to the Humane Society of Boulder Valley to be checked by veterinarians, and it was there that the presence of the bacteria was confirmed. A dead squirrel also tested positive for the plague. Jennifer Bolser, chief veterinarian at the Humane Society clinic, said that the cat brought the dead squirrel home and likely became infected from it. The bubonic plague is caused by a bacterium called Yersinia pestis. It begins its life cycle...

CHICAGO (Reuters) – Public health officials are investigating the death of a University of Chicago researcher who studied plague bacteria and was found to have the microbe in his blood, university officials said on Monday. Malcolm Casadaban, who died on September 13, was researching a weakened strain of the plague bacteria Yersinia pestis. Because it is missing key proteins, the strain is not normally harmful to people. Medical center spokesman John Easton said Casadaban had the laboratory strain of Yersinia pestis in his blood, suggesting he had a form of the infection known as septicemic plague, which can kill even...

Scientists Discover Why Plague Is So Lethal ScienceDaily (May 5, 2008) — Bacteria that cause the bubonic plague may be more virulent than their close relatives because of a single genetic mutation, according to research published in the May issue of the journal Microbiology.Yersinia pestis, direct fluorescent antibody stain (DFA), at 200x magnification. (Credit: CDC / Courtesy of Larry Stauffer, Oregon State Public Health Laboratory) "The plague bacterium Yersinia pestis needs calcium in order to grow at body temperature. When there is no calcium available, it produces a large amount of an amino acid called aspartic acid," said Professor Brubaker...

Source: Washington University School of Medicine Date: January 27, 2007 Disabling Key Protein May Give Physicians Time To Treat Pneumonic Plague Science Daily — The deadly attack of the bacterium that causes pneumonic plague is significantly slowed when it can't make use of a key protein, scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis report in this week's issue of Science. Scanning electron micrograph depicting a mass of Yersinia pestis bacteria (the cause of bubonic plague) in the foregut of the flea vector. (Credit: Rocky Mountain Laboratories, NIAID, NIH) Speed is a primary concern in pneumonic plague, which...

In 430 B.C., a new and deadly disease—its cause remains a mystery—swept into Athens. The walled Greek city-state was teeming with citizens, soldiers and refugees of the war then raging between Athens and Sparta. As streets filled with corpses, social order broke down. Over the next three years, the illness returned twice and Athens lost a third of its population. It lost the war too. The Plague of Athens marked the beginning of the end of the Golden Age of Greece. The Plague of Athens is one of 10 historically notable outbreaks described in an article in The Lancet Infectious...

Italy: Plague victims discovered after 1500 years Rome, 10 April (AKI) - The remains of hundreds of victims, believed to have been killed in a plague that swept Italy 1500 years ago, have been found south of Rome. The bodies of men, women and children were found in Castro dei Volsci, in the region of Lazio, during excavations carried out by Lazio archaeological office. News of the extraordinary discovery was reported in the magazine, "Archeologia Viva". The victims are believed to have been victims of the Justinian Plague, a pandemic that killed as many as 100 million people around the...

An Empire's Epidemic Scientists Use DNA in Search for Answers to 6th Century Plague By THOMAS H. MAUGH II, Times Staff Writer By the middle of the 6th century, the Emperor Justinian had spread his Byzantine Empire around the rim of the Mediterranean and throughout Europe, laying the groundwork for what he hoped would be a long-lived dynasty. His dreams were shattered when disease-bearing mice from lower Egypt reached the harbor town of Pelusium in AD 540. From there, the devastating disease spread to Alexandria and, by ship, to Constantinople, Justinian's capital, before surging throughout his empire. By the time...

Bubonic Plague Traced to Ancient Egypt Cameron Walker for National Geographic News March 10, 2004 The bubonic plague, or Black Death, may have originated in ancient Egypt, according to a new study. "This is the first time the plague's origins in Egypt have been backed up by archaeological evidence," said Eva Panagiotakopulu, who made the discovery. Panagiotakopulu is an archaeologist and fossil-insect expert at the University of Sheffield, England. King Tutankhamun lies in his burial chamber in the Valley of the Kings, Egypt. Some researchers now believe that the bubonic plague, or Black Death, originated in the village where builders...

China paper warns of impact from euro crisis "Black Death" Reuters By Chris Buckley | Reuters – 3 hrs ago BEIJING (Reuters) - The "Black Death" of debt crisis across the Euro zone will hurt China by sapping demand for exports, although Beijing's relatively small holdings of euro assets will limit any damage to foreign exchange reserves, the nation's top official newspaper said on Monday. The bleak diagnosis for the euro's prospects appeared in the overseas edition of the People's Daily, the top newspaper of China's ruling Communist Party, in a commentary by a former central bank official and an...

Enlarge Image Preserved. Climate changes recorded in tree rings correlate with important events in European history, such as the Black Death. Credit: Wikimedia When empires rise and fall and plagues sweep over the land, people have traditionally cursed the stars. But perhaps they should blame the weather. A new analysis of European tree-ring samples suggests that mild summers may have been the key to the rise of the Roman Empire—and that prolonged droughts, cold snaps, and other climate changes might have played a part in historical upheavals, from the barbarian invasions that brought about Rome's collapse to the Black...

An extensive study of tree growth rings says there could be a link between the rise and fall of past civilisations and sudden shifts in Europe's climate. A team of researchers based their findings on data from 9,000 wooden artifacts from the past 2,500 years. They found that periods of warm, wet summers coincided with prosperity, while political turmoil occurred during times of climate instability. The findings have been published online by the journal Science. "Looking back on 2,500 years, there are examples where climate change impacted human history," co-author Ulf Buntgen, a paleoclimatologist at the Swiss Federal Research Institute...

A prolonged period of wet weather spurred the spread of the Bubonic plague in medieval times, according to a new study. And a 300-year spell of unpredictable weather coincided with the decline of the Roman Empire. Climate change wasn't necessarily the cause of these and other major historical events, researchers say. But the study offers the most detailed picture yet of how climate and society have been intertwined for millennia. Again and again, the data suggest, climate has impacted culture in dramatic ways. Unusually extreme and frequent shifts in weather patterns between 250 and 550, for example, coincided with a...

Geographical position of the five archaeological sites investigated. Green dots indicate the sites. Also indicated are two likely independent infection routes (black and red dotted arrows) for the spread of the Black Death (1347-1353) after Benedictow. ©: PLoS Pathogens The 'Black Death' was caused by at least two previously unknown types of Yersinia pestis bacteria. The latest tests conducted by anthropologists at the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) have proven that the bacteria Yersinia pestis was indeed the causative agent behind the "Black Death" that raged across Europe in the Middle Ages. The cause of the epidemic has always remained...

 __________________________________________________ GREAT CHASTISEMENT DURING MIDDLE AGES WAS FEROCIOUS SPREAD OF 'BLACK DEATH' [Adapted from The Last Secret by Michael H. Brown] Are our times like the Middle Ages? And if so, might we one day face plague? Let's take a look, today, and in a second installment next week, at the "black death," which occurred in the 14th century. That great disaster -- one of the greatest on record -- took place at a time of immorality, irreligion (the Mass was celebrated in some places like a circus), and materialism. It followed on the heels of a climate swerve...

An Al Qaeda affiliate in Algeria closed a base earlier this month after an experiment with unconventional weapons went awry, a senior U.S. intelligence official said Monday. The official, who spoke on the condition he not be named because of the sensitive nature of the issue, said he could not confirm press reports that the accident killed at least 40 Al Qaeda operatives, but he said the mishap led the militant group to shut down a base in the mountains of Tizi Ouzou province in eastern Algeria.

ANTI-TERROR bosses last night hailed their latest ally in the war on terror — the BLACK DEATH. At least 40 al-Qaeda fanatics died horribly after being struck down with the disease that devastated Europe in the Middle Ages. The killer bug, also known as the plague, swept through insurgents training at a forest camp in Algeria, North Africa. It came to light when security forces found a body by a roadside. The victim was a terrorist in AQLIM (al-Qaeda in the Land of the Islamic Maghreb), the largest and most powerful al-Qaeda group outside the Middle East. It trains Muslim...

At least 40 al-Qaeda fanatics died horribly after being struck down with the disease that devastated Europe in the Middle Ages. The killer bug, also known as the plague, swept through insurgents training at a forest camp in Algeria, North Africa. It came to light when security forces found a body by a roadside. The victim was a terrorist in AQLIM (al-Qaeda in the Land of the Islamic Maghreb), the largest and most powerful al-Qaeda group outside the Middle East. It trains Muslim fighters to kill British and US troops. Now al-Qaeda chiefs fear the plague has been passed to...

Al Qaeda terrorists have been left fearing the Black Death plague after it wiped out at least 40 insurgents at an Algerian training camp, it was reported today. The horror disease, which killed 25 million people in medieval Europe, is understood to have been found in a militant’s body dumped at a roadside. Terror group AQLIM (al Qaeda in the Land of the Islamic Maghreb) was forced to turn its shelter in the Yakouren forests into mass graves and flee, it has been claimed. Now al Qaeda chiefs are said to fear the plague has been passed into other cells...

ANTI-TERROR bosses last night hailed their latest ally in the war on terror — the BLACK DEATH. At least 40 al-Qaeda fanatics died horribly after being struck down with the disease that devastated Europe in the Middle Ages. The killer bug, also known as the plague, swept through insurgents training at a forest camp in Algeria, North Africa. It came to light when security forces found a body by a roadside. The victim was a terrorist in AQLIM (al-Qaeda in the Land of the Islamic Maghreb), the largest and most powerful al-Qaeda group outside the Middle East. It trains Muslim...

One day last October, Eric York lugged the carcass of an adult mountain lion from his truck and laid it carefully on a tarp on the floor of his garage. The female mountain lion had a bloody nose, but her hide bore no other signs of trauma. York, a biologist at Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona, found the big cat lying motionless near the canyon’s South Rim. He was determined to learn why she died. Because the park lacks a forensics lab, he did the postmortem in his garage, in a village of about 2,000 park employees. Epidemic experts...

- YES! To begin with, let's try and fully understand what Renaissance Florence actually has accomplished, apart from making tourists feel like this: "I was in a sort of ecstasy, from the idea of being in Florence, close to the great men whose tombs I had seen. Absorbed in the contemplation of sublime beauty ... I reached the point where one encounters celestial sensations ... Everything spoke so vividly to my soul. Ah, if I could only forget. I had palpitations of the heart, what in Berlin they call 'nerves.' Life was drained from me. I walked with the fear...

Many historians have assumed that Europe’s deadliest plague, the Black Death of 1347 to 1351, killed indiscriminately, young and old, hardy and frail, healthy and sick alike. But two anthropologists were not so sure. They decided to take a closer look at the skeletons of people buried more than 650 years ago. Their findings, published on Monday in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, suggest that the plague selectively took the already ill, while many of the otherwise healthy survived the infection. Although it may not be surprising that healthy people would be more likely to survive an...

Medieval DNA, Modern Medicine Volume 60 Number 6, November/December 2007 by Heather Pringle Will a cemetery excavation establish a link between the Black Death and resistance to AIDS? Beneath Eindhoven's modern skin of brick and asphalt lie the bones of its medieval townspeople. Studying their DNA may reveal the origin of the genetic resistance to AIDS. (Courtesy Laurens Mulkens) From the start, Nico Arts sensed that the frail remains of a child buried in front of a medieval church altar had an important story to tell. Arts is the municipal archaeologist in Eindhoven, a prosperous industrial city in the southern...

Most anybody in the mortgage business will tell you that August was a month that will live in infamy: The market was in turmoil, as doubts about the stability of subprime loans spread to other sectors of the mortgage world. How bad was it? A survey of mortgage brokers suggests that one in three consumers who recently signed purchase contracts canceled in August -- up from just 4 percent three years ago, according to the research firm that conducted the survey for Inside Mortgage Finance, a trade journal. The cancellation rate undoubtedly was fed by two scenarios playing out: Many...

More Americans Say Value Of Their Home Has Fallen Topics:Housing | Real Estate | Consumers | Economy (U.S.)By Reuters | 21 Sep 2007 | 10:48 AM ET Font size: A record 26% of U.S. homeowners say the value of their homes has fallen during the past year, above the previous peak of 24% seen in 1992, a survey released Friday showed. Reflecting the extent of the prolonged housing slump, 21% of homeowners polled in September expect the value of their home to decline in the year ahead, up from 18% in August, according to the data from Reuters/University of Michigan...

For centuries, rats and fleas have been fingered as the culprits responsible for the Black Death, the medieval plague that killed as many as two thirds of Europe’s population. But historians studying 14th-century court records from Dorset believe they may have uncovered evidence that exonerates them. The parchment records, contained in a recently-discovered archive, reveal that an estimated 50 per cent of the 2,000 people living in Gillingham died within four months of the Black Death reaching the town in October 1348. The deaths are recorded in land transfers lodged with the manorial court which – unusually for the period...

LONDON, May 7 (UPI) -- Bacteria from the same family as the Black Death was recently found inside British trash cans that are only emptied once every two weeks. A health hazards study found among some of the trash cans collected every 14 days, a strain of bacteria eerily similar to that of the one that killed 75 million people during the Middle Ages, The Daily Mail said Monday. The study found some of the bacteria found in the receptacles were from the exact family from which the yersinia pestis strain originated centuries ago. Such troubling findings were included in...

PLAGUED BY FEAR: Second of seven parts Vials reported missing and feds swarm in Previously: At a time when the government was on alert for bioterrorism attacks, Texas Tech University researcher Dr. Thomas Butler was working with federal officials to confirm the effectiveness of an antibiotic against plague. On Jan. 11, 2003, Butler discovered that 30 vials of plague bacteria from his laboratory were missing. Monday, March 27, 2006 John Mangels Plain Dealer Reporter The day was almost over when the astonishing phone call came in to the Lubbock FBI office. It was Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2003, around 5 p.m....

Plagued by fear: First of seven parts Dr. Thomas Butler was the government's go-to guy if you were worried about a plague attack - and in the hair-trigger months after Sept. 11, 2001, a lot of federal officials were. For parts of three decades, he had treated the Black Death's bloated victims in the Third World. He'd plumbed the bacteria's dark secrets in university labs in Cleveland, and later in Lubbock, Texas, searching for better ways to blunt its lethal kiss. After Jan. 11, 2003, none of that mattered. Sunday, March 26, 2006 John Mangels Plain Dealer Science On a...

Tobacco mosaic virus (TMV) is one of the oldest known diseases of the plant world. Plague--known as the "black death" in medieval Europe--is one of the oldest diseases afflicting humans, and has become a focus of concern in recent years because of its potential use as a bioweapon. Now scientists have transformed TMV to infect host plants and produce immunizing proteins rather than debilitating leaf shrivel, turning greenhouse tobacco into a biofactory for plague vaccine. Biotechnology specialists Charles Arntzen and his colleagues at Arizona State University used a process developed in Germany to effect the change. First, they injected the...

Pesticides, which undergo an Environmental Protection Agency registration process that can cost up to $50 million for a single new product, has seen many excellent products withdrawn from the market despite years of successful and effective use against a wide range of insect or rodent pests. There is little incentive to introduce new ones. Too many people remained convinced the pesticides will kill them, not the pests.

This month, the New Jersey Pest Management Association issued a news release to warn against the prospect of billions of mosquitoes and threat of West Nile Fever they pose. West Nile Fever arrived in New York City in 1999 and, within three years, it had spread to California. In Washington, an executive order was signed recently to insure that avian flu does not reach these shores and, when a single case of Mad Cow Disease was discovered, the border was shut to Canadian beef. When SAARS broke out in Red China a few years ago, it too was quickly quarantined....

In the 1200’s in Europe something began to change. Most of the wealth of Europe came from the produce of land. Pollen evidence, as well as glacial evidence, prove that from 750 AD to 800 AD, and again two hundred years later from 1150 AD to 1200 AD, Europe’s weather suddenly starting warming, known as the “Medieval Warm”. Pollen studies of the beech forests along the Fernau glacier and in the Ardenes region of Northern France prove that these forests started to expand their borders during the late Eight Century from their A.D. 200 borders, and we discover that Alpine...

According to the Al Qaeda letter sent to Al Quds in London claiming responsibility for the Spanish bombings a huge operation targeting the USA is 90 percent ready. IT was stated, "Operation Winds of Black Death is in its final preparation." This was just reported on the live broadcast. No link yet.

If I were to tell you that the Congress of Racial Equality held a teach-in last month, and that among the featured speakers was one of the founders of Greenpeace, what would you suppose was the agenda? Denouncing the policies of rich-world environmentalists whose policies mean suffering and death for hundreds of millions of destitute people in poor countries, especially in Africa. That's what. Participants minced no words in their description of the event, and I intend to deliver them to you largely unminced as well, because they know what they are talking about and they've said it better than...

Although SARS does not appear to be as contagious as the 1918 Spanish flu, its mortality rate is higher. The current pandemic shows that in the future, new infectious diseases will increasingly be a global problem. Modern air transportation can spread a disease all over the world within a very brief period of time. In other words, as was the case with food-borne epidemics, antibiotic-resistant bacteria, insect-borne diseases such as the West Nile virus and AIDS, an outbreak anywhere in the world is soon a threat everywhere. As we experienced with the Hong Kong bird flu in 1997, when more...

The Black Death of the 1300s was probably not the modern disease known as bubonic plague, according to a team of anthropologists studying on these 14th century epidemics. “Although on the surface, seem to have been similar, we are not convinced that the epidemic in the 14th century and the present day bubonic plague are the same,” says Dr. James Wood, professor of anthropology and demography at Penn State. “Old descriptions of disease symptoms are usually too non-specific to be a reliable basis for diagnosis.” The researchers note that it was the symptom of lymphatic swelling that led 19th century...

Black Death 'was not plague' say experts The Black Death may not have been caused by bubonic plague after all, say US scientists. They have been looking at church records from the 14th century to find out how the disease spread. They now think it was probably some other infection passed on by human contact and not bubonic plague which relies on flea-ridden rats. Records show the disease spread along busy roads and rivers and over natural barriers which would have restricted rats. They also say there are other diseases with similar symptoms which are more likely candidates. The modern...