It's only February and already 2022 is shaping up badly. A huge volcanic eruption off the coast of Tonga, the prospect of war with Russia, the ongoing pandemic (and its economic disruptions). And that's even before we touch ...
Environment
Feb 2, 2022
0
1864
Many have claimed the Justinianic Plague (c. 541-750 CE) killed half of the population of Roman Empire. Now, historical research and mathematical modeling challenge the death rate and severity of this first plague pandemic.
Mathematics
May 2, 2020
18
545
Black Death, mid-fourteenth century plague, is undoubtedly the most famous historical pandemic. Within only five years it killed 30-50% of the European population. Unfortunately it didn't stop there. Plague resurged throughout ...
Cell & Microbiology
Jan 22, 2016
18
2544
A series of 'bone biographies' created by a major research project tell the stories of medieval Cambridge residents as recorded on their skeletons, illuminating everyday lives during the era of Black Death and its aftermath.
Archaeology
Nov 30, 2023
0
508
The origins of the plague go back to the Neolithic Age, with the oldest findings of the causative pathogen Yersinia pestis coming from human bones around 5,000 years old. In the history of the plague, the late antique Justinianic ...
Evolution
Jul 26, 2023
0
126
Before the infamous Black Death, the first great plague epidemic was the Justinian plague, which, over the course of two centuries, wiped out up to an estimated 50 million (15 percent) of the world's population throughout ...
Archaeology
Aug 30, 2016
1
983
In the mid-14th century Europe was devastated by a major pandemic—the Black Death—which killed between 40 and 60 per cent of the population. Later waves of plague then continued to strike regularly over several centuries.
Archaeology
Jun 17, 2021
0
220
New research using ancient DNA has revealed that plague has been endemic in human populations for more than twice as long as previously thought, and that the ancestral plague would have been predominantly spread by human-to-human ...
Cell & Microbiology
Oct 22, 2015
0
2707
A team of researchers with the University of Oslo has found evidence that suggests human fleas and lice, not rodents, were behind the spread of the plague that killed millions of people over the course of several centuries. ...
Scientists who study the origins and evolution of the plague have examined hundreds of ancient human teeth from Denmark, seeking to address longstanding questions about its arrival, persistence and spread within Scandinavia.
Archaeology
Feb 24, 2023
0
163
