Black Death Bacterium Identified: Genetic Analysis of Medieval Plague Skeletons Shows Presence of Yersinia Pestis Bacteria

ScienceDaily (Aug. 29, 2011) — 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.

The results of the research are published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Previous genetic tests indicating that the bacterium was present in medieval samples had previously been dismissed as contaminated by modern DNA or the DNA of bacteria in the soil. Above all, there was doubt because the modern plague pathogen spreads much more slowly and is less deadly than the medieval plague -- even allowing for modern medicine.

What I understood is that the black death bacteria has been in the earth about 600 years. The reason that why the black death exist is because for the plague that the human produced and by the years, the dark death had developed to became an mortal disease for the animal and the human. The massage that this article want to give is that we need to take care ourself and the natural resources as well, that we need to take the responsability that we increased the plague and we need to correct the mistake that the people made it in 600 years ago.

I interested because is something that I didn't know it. that the plague has a one bacteria called the black death and for this bacteria, it was killing people and animals in this world. And I thought that it will be a good topoic because actually. in biology, we are talking about cells and the last class, we talked about type of bacteria and how we could clasifield it.

my connection is that I learned something that it will be usefull for my college because I want to study ocean biology and always in science, it will have some kind of stuff that you learned in the school.

The topic of this article is about bacteria, bacteria that is in the plague and it could be mortal for living things.

I get this information on:http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/08/110829173751.htm