When discussing human evolution, many people think of bones uncovered in Africa like the skeleton named Lucy or mention that Neanderthals and anatomically modern humans coexisted in Europe. However, our evolution has not ceased in recent years even if the evolutionary changes are not as physically obvious as the difference between Homo erectus and Homo […]
The statistics are grim. In 2013, human rights agencies estimate that as many as 29.8 million people worldwide are victims of human trafficking (1), forced into debt bondage or marriage or sold as soldiers or sex workers. Many of these victims are children. Very few of them are ever identified (less than 0.2% of victims in 2013). Most […]
Your Promega Connections bloggers had a great time bringing you cool science stories, technical tips and assorted other reading material this year, and we want to say a big “Thank you!” to all of our readers for your time, your comments, and your reblogs. Here are some of the highlights from 2012. In January Kelly […]
I am fascinated by all the ways that scientists are taking sensitive techniques and using them to look into our past. For example, scientists constructed the entire genome of Yersinia pestis, the caustive agent of the Black Death, from teeth and bone samples of plague victims from the 14th century. Without methods like polymerase chain […]
After writing my review of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA article “Targeted enrichment of ancient pathogens yielding the pPCP1 plasmid of Yersinia pestis from victims of the Black Death”, I vaguely wondered if the authors could have sequenced more than a single 10kb plasmid. If the single-copy chromosomal DNA was too […]
Last year, I reviewed a PLoS Pathogens paper that found European Black Plague victims from the mid 14th century were infected with more than one clone of Yersinia pestis. While the Y. pestis-specific sequences amplified from several skeletal samples from various countries were evidence of the bacterium as the etiological agent, questions still remained about […]
I was confident I knew a few things about the bubonic plague: It was caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis, which was transmitted to humans by fleas hitching a ride on the back of traveling rats. It spread rapidly and devastated populations around the globe, and because cats, a natural predator of scurrying rodents, had […]
