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Wednesday, February 25, 2015

'Gerbils replace rats' as main cause of Black Death

de bene esse: literally, of well-being, morally acceptable but subject to future validation or exception


Black rats may not have been to blame for numerous outbreaks of the bubonic plague across Europe, a study suggests. The Black Death, which originated in Asia, arrived in Europe in 1347 and caused one of the deadliest outbreaks in human history. Professor Nils Christian Stenseth and his colleagues from the University of Oslo do not think a rat reservoir was to blame. The team believes that specific weather conditions in Asia may have caused another plague-carrying rodent - the giant gerbil - to thrive and this then later led to epidemics in Europe. http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-31588671


 


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