blivet radio
The Radio weblog of Hal Rager

Monday, April 15, 2002

Two from Science Daily Medieval Black Death Was Probably Not Bubonic Plague. "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." (...) "It is possible that the Black Death was caused by any of a number of infectious organisms, but we are not ready to pinpoint the causative agent," says Wood. "The Black Death was too quickly identified with bubonic plague in the past. Indeed, historians took what was known about the bubonic plague and used it erroneously to fill in the many gaps in our picture of the Black Death. We do not want to make the same mistake by identifying some other possible cause prematurely." The researchers do not rule out the possibility that the Black Death might have been caused by an ancestor of the modern plague bacillus, which might later have mutated into the insect-borne disease of rodents that we now call bubonic plague. The fact is that we can only trace modern bubonic plague reliably back to the late 18th century or early 19th century, according to Wood. Who knows when it first emerged? "We too often make the assumption that while a lot of things change in the interaction of infectious diseases and human hosts, the microbe itself stays more or less the same," says Wood. "This is wrong. If anything is likely to change, it is a microbe that goes through millions of generations and an equal number of chances to mutate over a few centuries. We see no reason to think that the Black Death pathogen still exists in anything like its original form." These findings are very similar to other pathogens of old, such as leprosy in the Middle East 2,000 years ago. Men Regain Evolutionary Driver's Seat -- Mutation Study Confirms Strong Male-Driven Evolution Among Humans And Apes. "The study also suggests mutations are "replication-driven" – caused mainly by cell divisions and not environmental factors. Since cell divisions are continuous during a man's life, his sperm stem cells constantly accumulate errors – or mutations. In contrast, there are only 24 cell divisions that occur in the egg cells of a woman, most of which take place before she is born.quot; I'm also curious if the rate of mutation in males is also affected by 'things' not being so protected by body tissue. 6:54:09 PM    comment   trackback []