Graduate student Jennifer Klunk of McMaster University examines a tooth used to decode the genome of the ancient plague.
Courtesy of McMaster University
5 comments:
Sophia
said...
This is a very thought-provoking article. When you think about a disease that killed millions of people, you get scared and wonder if it will come back and kill the people of your generation. Now that scientists have reconstructed the genetic code for this plague, they can learn about how it killed all these people and how to prevent another plague from happening. Even though our knowledge about medicine and technology is very highly developed, we still need to be careful. I find it very interesting that a tooth, 1,500 years old, could still have blood in it. That makes me wonder if when I die, people will find my skeleton and analyze my tooth in 1,000 to 2,000 years.
This article was very interesting and very important. First of all, I would like to praise the researchers of this plague, because it is probably dangerous to be touching this ancient tooth with blood in it. Second of all, I thought this was interesting because almost everyone knows of the Black Death, but the Justinian Plague is not publicized as much. Why is that? Also, when I was reading other articles about this topic, several of them said that the Black Death and Justinian Plague were caused by the same bacteria, but were totally different strains because they were hundreds of years apart. Therefore, there is a possibility that there could be another plague caused by this same deadly bacteria in modern times, which is a slightly disturbing thought. Also, because it is a bacterial disease and antibiotic resistance is present, this could produce a dangerous threat to us. Another thing that was surprising to me is that this plague is still living today. According to livescience, plagues are still surviving everywhere EXCEPT for Australia. The greatest amount of humans infected with plagues is in African countries, but the greatest amount of animals infected are found in the U.S. and former Soviet Union. In the world, there are about 1,000 to 3,000 cases of plague each year. While this may seem like a lot(and it is) the number has greatly decreased from the 50,000,000 people killed in both the Justinian plague and the Black Death. One thing I wonder is: why doesn't Australia have ANY plagues? However, when I looked it up, websites said that Australia had plagues, but it was not a problem because they occured infrequently. So, I still don't know how Australia ends up with fewer plagues. There could be the fact that there are many snakes, dingos, and birds of prey in Australia, but that couldn't kill ALL of the rodent population. I definitely want to research this plague more, because I think it’s really important to know about this bacteria so that we know how to fight it if another epidemic breaks out. If anyone finds any more info about the plague, I would appreciate it if you could post the info on the blog. Thanks!
This was a great article. It is amazing that the scientists can gather DNA from so long ago. I think it is cool that the scientists can discern all these things from the clues given to them, for example, the death was by plagues because bodies were put together. Though it is cool, I wonder if it is completely safe to be extracting the DNA. Though we have developed a medicine, the plague that we have today might be slightly different from the one from thousands of years ago, therefore putting thousands of peoples lives at risk. In fact, an article that I read estimated the number of deaths from the Justinian plague to be 30 to 50 million. During my research, I discovered that the rock squirrel flea is the most likely plague-carrier. An article I read said that humans and cats are easily infected, but dogs are a little more resistant to the plague. Why should that be? I was interested in how fleas became infected, so I researched it. I found that the flea will ingest it, and the bacteria will reproduce inside of the fleas gut, perhaps even forming a plug of its digestive system. After the flea is infected, it has to take some time to be able to infect others. One article said that for a rock squirrel flea, it takes 53 days. It is also likely that fleas never transmit the disease because of the plug on the gut, it may die before it ever gets a chance, and that greatly reduce the number of infected animals and people. If they do live to infect others, however, they are more hungry from the blocked gut that they are eager to bite and infect. Though people are usually infected by bites, the plague can also be transmitted by scratching the flea's fecal matter into bites or injuries. Besides swollen lymph nodes, other symptons include rise in temperature, headache, and feeling of illness. Something interesting that I found in an article I read is that the plagues has a pneumonic form in which it is spread by inhaling respiratory droplets. In conclusion, this was a very interesting article and it helped me to delve more deeply in the Justinian plague and how it was spread.
I found this article very informative and interesting. To hear that researchers could find an entire genetic line from one tooth, thousands of years old, that is a huge step in what we could find out about how we used to live and under what conditions. As I was looking at Christina's comment, I completely agree with her when I say that I wondered why the Justinian Plague was not publicized as much. Using clues, I don't think it could have caused the fall of Rome. Otherwise, it would have been investigated heavily. As I read the last sentence of the article (These days, though, antibiotics can quickly stop plague outbreaks in their tracks.) , I chuckled, as we had just done a unit on bacterial resistance. What happens when a pandemic like this begins to happen yet again, and because of resistance, we can't do anything? This, in my mind, was a great article that could evolve into something more later on.
This was an interesting article and I enjoyed reading it. These antibiotics could have been very useful in those two terrible times. I found it interesting that the scientists could still track what was on the tooth DNA from thousands of years ago. This was a scary time in that so many people died all over the world from this quickly spreading bacteria causing to great plagues. Even though we now have the antibiotics, there still might be things that we don't know about other kinds of deadly bacteria. For example, this bacteria reminds me a lot of lyme, which is also contagious and is spread by fleas. Once you get it, it is usually too late to get rid of it when you realize that you have it. This could affect so many people greatly, and it already has. I disagree with the article in that this plague could have led to the downfall of the Roman Empire because even though, yes, many people died, there is still room for many more children to come and help the Empire grow with more people again. It was mainly the wars that brought ti down. It is only suspected that Yersina pestis caused these plagues, so if we do know who to cure that, it might be some other microbe. This is a fast infecting microbe and can cause a lot of damage to a lot of people. This has been hard to study because it was so long ago. Is there a better way to study this? Also, while buried, these skeletons could have accumulated a lot of other bacteria from the ground besides, this plague bacteria. This plague is not different from other bacteria today. I would like to know a little more on how the bacteria was exactly spread, even though the article states that it is spread from reservoirs to rodents and fleas, then to people (most likely by biting them). This was a very interesting article and I hope to find out more about it.
5 comments:
This is a very thought-provoking article. When you think about a disease that killed millions of people, you get scared and wonder if it will come back and kill the people of your generation. Now that scientists have reconstructed the genetic code for this plague, they can learn about how it killed all these people and how to prevent another plague from happening. Even though our knowledge about medicine and technology is very highly developed, we still need to be careful. I find it very interesting that a tooth, 1,500 years old, could still have blood in it. That makes me wonder if when I die, people will find my skeleton and analyze my tooth in 1,000 to 2,000 years.
This article was very interesting and very important. First of all, I would like to praise the researchers of this plague, because it is probably dangerous to be touching this ancient tooth with blood in it. Second of all, I thought this was interesting because almost everyone knows of the Black Death, but the Justinian Plague is not publicized as much. Why is that? Also, when I was reading other articles about this topic, several of them said that the Black Death and Justinian Plague were caused by the same bacteria, but were totally different strains because they were hundreds of years apart. Therefore, there is a possibility that there could be another plague caused by this same deadly bacteria in modern times, which is a slightly disturbing thought. Also, because it is a bacterial disease and antibiotic resistance is present, this could produce a dangerous threat to us. Another thing that was surprising to me is that this plague is still living today. According to livescience, plagues are still surviving everywhere EXCEPT for Australia. The greatest amount of humans infected with plagues is in African countries, but the greatest amount of animals infected are found in the U.S. and former Soviet Union. In the world, there are about 1,000 to 3,000 cases of plague each year. While this may seem like a lot(and it is) the number has greatly decreased from the 50,000,000 people killed in both the Justinian plague and the Black Death. One thing I wonder is: why doesn't Australia have ANY plagues? However, when I looked it up, websites said that Australia had plagues, but it was not a problem because they occured infrequently. So, I still don't know how Australia ends up with fewer plagues. There could be the fact that there are many snakes, dingos, and birds of prey in Australia, but that couldn't kill ALL of the rodent population. I definitely want to research this plague more, because I think it’s really important to know about this bacteria so that we know how to fight it if another epidemic breaks out. If anyone finds any more info about the plague, I would appreciate it if you could post the info on the blog. Thanks!
This was a great article. It is amazing that the scientists can gather DNA from so long ago. I think it is cool that the scientists can discern all these things from the clues given to them, for example, the death was by plagues because bodies were put together. Though it is cool, I wonder if it is completely safe to be extracting the DNA. Though we have developed a medicine, the plague that we have today might be slightly different from the one from thousands of years ago, therefore putting thousands of peoples lives at risk. In fact, an article that I read estimated the number of deaths from the Justinian plague to be 30 to 50 million. During my research, I discovered that the rock squirrel flea is the most likely plague-carrier. An article I read said that humans and cats are easily infected, but dogs are a little more resistant to the plague. Why should that be? I was interested in how fleas became infected, so I researched it. I found that the flea will ingest it, and the bacteria will reproduce inside of the fleas gut, perhaps even forming a plug of its digestive system. After the flea is infected, it has to take some time to be able to infect others. One article said that for a rock squirrel flea, it takes 53 days. It is also likely that fleas never transmit the disease because of the plug on the gut, it may die before it ever gets a chance, and that greatly reduce the number of infected animals and people. If they do live to infect others, however, they are more hungry from the blocked gut that they are eager to bite and infect. Though people are usually infected by bites, the plague can also be transmitted by scratching the flea's fecal matter into bites or injuries. Besides swollen lymph nodes, other symptons include rise in temperature, headache, and feeling of illness. Something interesting that I found in an article I read is that the plagues has a pneumonic form in which it is spread by inhaling respiratory droplets. In conclusion, this was a very interesting article and it helped me to delve more deeply in the Justinian plague and how it was spread.
I found this article very informative and interesting. To hear that researchers could find an entire genetic line from one tooth, thousands of years old, that is a huge step in what we could find out about how we used to live and under what conditions. As I was looking at Christina's comment, I completely agree with her when I say that I wondered why the Justinian Plague was not publicized as much. Using clues, I don't think it could have caused the fall of Rome. Otherwise, it would have been investigated heavily. As I read the last sentence of the article (These days, though, antibiotics can quickly stop plague outbreaks in their tracks.) , I chuckled, as we had just done a unit on bacterial resistance. What happens when a pandemic like this begins to happen yet again, and because of resistance, we can't do anything? This, in my mind, was a great article that could evolve into something more later on.
This was an interesting article and I enjoyed reading it. These antibiotics could have been very useful in those two terrible times. I found it interesting that the scientists could still track what was on the tooth DNA from thousands of years ago. This was a scary time in that so many people died all over the world from this quickly spreading bacteria causing to great plagues. Even though we now have the antibiotics, there still might be things that we don't know about other kinds of deadly bacteria. For example, this bacteria reminds me a lot of lyme, which is also contagious and is spread by fleas. Once you get it, it is usually too late to get rid of it when you realize that you have it. This could affect so many people greatly, and it already has. I disagree with the article in that this plague could have led to the downfall of the Roman Empire because even though, yes, many people died, there is still room for many more children to come and help the Empire grow with more people again. It was mainly the wars that brought ti down. It is only suspected that Yersina pestis caused these plagues, so if we do know who to cure that, it might be some other microbe. This is a fast infecting microbe and can cause a lot of damage to a lot of people. This has been hard to study because it was so long ago. Is there a better way to study this? Also, while buried, these skeletons could have accumulated a lot of other bacteria from the ground besides, this plague bacteria. This plague is not different from other bacteria today. I would like to know a little more on how the bacteria was exactly spread, even though the article states that it is spread from reservoirs to rodents and fleas, then to people (most likely by biting them). This was a very interesting article and I hope to find out more about it.
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