Fox News - The bacterium blamed for the Black Death that wiped out more than a third of Europe's population within about five years of the 14th century looks an awful lot like the modern versions of the plague-causing bug, new genetic research indicates. By taking the now-powdery black pulp out of the teeth of plague victims buried in London's East Smithfield Cemetery — a cemetery established solely to handle the onslaught of the Black Death once it arrived in the city in 1348 — researchers have managed to reconstruct the entire genetic blueprint, or genome, of the bacterium blamed for the devastation.
Well, I'm glad that one's not hanging over our head anymore, one less thing to worry about right? Only took 700 or so years. That's gotta give hope to those with AIDS and Cancer too, now that some of our best and brightest are done digging up mummies and crypt keepers and playing with diseases from over half a millenia ago, they should be able to focus on more pressing matters at hand, like actual viruses and diseases harming actual living people.
Seriously, what the hell is going on over there in England? No one thought, hey guys, these resources might be better served researching modern illness? Or that maybe digging up 700 year old disease ridden corpses is a pretty solid way to potentially kick off a health epidemic? In fact, I'm pretty sure that's been the basis for roughly 50% of all Zombie related moves. Old plagues and illness being reintroduced to the modern world.
