The bug that lost a few genes to become Black Death
Tuesday, May 27, 2014 - 07:20
in Biology & Nature
About 6,000 years ago, a bacterium underwent a few genetic changes. These allowed it to expand its habitat from the guts of mice to that of fleas. Such changes happen all the time, but in this particular instance the transformation eventually resulted in the Black Death that wiped out a third of Europe's population in the 14th century.