Medieval Skeletons Reveal How the Bubonic Plague Influenced Human DNA
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Image caption: An image captured by a scanning electron microscope of Yersinia pestis bacteria, which causes the bubonic plague. IMAGE POINT FR / NIH / NIAID / BSIP / Universal Images Group via Getty Images. Article by Will Sullivan. Smithsonian Magazine –
As the Black Death decimated medieval Europe’s population, certain genetic variants may have increased some people’s chance of survival. Now, in a paper published last week in Nature, researchers suggest one variant might have raised these odds by 40 percent. But despite the way this gene helped during the bubonic plague, today it plays a small role in causing autoimmune disorders such as Crohn’s disease. […]
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