Why scientists reconstructed an ancient plague
Scientists have just reconstructed the genome of an ancient plague, which may shed new light on how certain diseases can either mysteriously disappear or continue to evolve and spread.
About 1,500 years ago, frequent outbreaks of the world's first known plague, caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis, killed more than 25 million people and sickened many others in the Mediterranean basin with "flu-like" symptoms. The pandemic, which was called the Justinian Plague after the sixth-century Byzantine emperor Justinian I, lasted to the mid-eighth century.