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Study: Seals Infected Early Americans With Tuberculosis

Posted by samzenpus on from the seal-of-consumption dept.

mdsolar writes that a study suggests that tuberculosis first appeared in the New World less than 6,000 years ago and it was brought here by seals. After a remarkable analysis of bacterial DNA from 1,000-year-old mummies, scientists have proposed a new hypothesis for how tuberculosis arose and spread around the world. The disease originated less than 6,000 years ago in Africa, they say, and took a surprising route to reach the New World: it was carried across the Atlantic by seals. The new study, published Wednesday in the journal Nature, has already provoked strong reactions from other scientists. "This is a landmark paper that challenges our previous ideas about the origins of tuberculosis," said Terry Brown, a professor of biomolecular archaeology at the University of Manchester. "At the moment, I'm still in the astonished stage over this."

19 of 74 comments (clear)

  1. Africa man... by thedarb · · Score: 3, Funny

    That place is trying to kill us off, for sure.

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    This sig intentionally left blank.
    1. Re:Africa man... by Iamthecheese · · Score: 5, Informative

      Seriously? The chance to cause global disasters and a million war deaths (by the most off-the-wall-extreme measures for the US's war on terror) and the like are not preferable to Africa's situation?

      Let me count some of the tragedies in recent years in Africa.

      I'm not arguing that first world countries are utopias but to claim Africa has it better or is doing things better is silly on the face of it.

      --
      If video games influenced behavior the Pac Man generation would be eating pills and running away from their problems.
    2. Re:Africa man... by geekmux · · Score: 2

      Yes, Africa had a meeting 6001 years ago where all the tribes agreed on that.

      (Africa is imho the least likely continent to cause global disasters, a few diseases because people live in poverty is hardly comparable to the wars and suffering caused by most 1st-world nations)

      A few diseases? Well, that's rather delusional.

      Go ahead and pit mankinds bloodlust for warfare against the 500 million that died of Polio. Spanish Flu? Throw another 100 million on the death toll fire. I can't even amass the numbers from The Plague. Thousands still die from it every year.

      Chalk up another 30 million to AIDS.

      And last but certainly not least, we have Africa to thank for such wonders as Ebola, which we can only hope and pray someone doesn't get stupid enough to try and weaponize that bastard.

      Sorry to burst your bubble. We're good at killing each other trying to prove what happens after you die and all, but we're not quite as good as mother natures death machine.

    3. Re:Africa man... by Chas · · Score: 2

      I think s/he is trying to make a point that African crises are largely confined to Africa.

      Yes, because nasty shit like this, and the things that follow it, ALWAYS stay contained!

      Not to mention that it's just shrugging off the sheer misery happening over the entire continent...

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      Chas - The one, the only.
      THANK GOD!!!
    4. Re:Africa man... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      They haven't started any world wars, ...

      It is not rational to give moral credit to people for not doing something which they were incapable of doing. Africans didn't colonize remote places because they were morally superior, but because they never developed any real civilization. Well, the Egyptians did, but sub-Saharan Africa has always been primitive, lacking the technology and social organization needed to explore the world.

  2. But but... by Narcocide · · Score: 5, Funny

    She told me she was a mermaid!!

    1. Re:But but... by antifoidulus · · Score: 4, Funny

      Well, in the future here is a handy rule of thumb that has helped me throughout my life: if someone offers to have sex with you in exchange for a bucket of fish, run.

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      Monstar L
    2. Re:But but... by tepples · · Score: 2

      I assume this is an allusion to the folk tale "The Seal Wife" (#4080 on the Christiansen list) about a "selkie" (someone from an indigenous culture that makes swimsuits from sealskins) who washes up on an island on the north side of Scotland. She takes off her swimsuit and sets it aside, but a fisherman steals it. Stockholm syndrome ensues.

    3. Re:But but... by I'm+New+Around+Here · · Score: 2

      On a related note: if someone offers to have sex with you in a bucket of fish, dive in.

      --
      If you think I voted for Trump because of this post, you're wrong. I voted for Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party. Again.
  3. Tag #WhereIsTheFuckingPaper by Guppy · · Score: 4, Informative

    Oh, here it is: Pre-Columbian mycobacterial genomes reveal seals as a source of New World human tuberculosis (Paywall -- free Nature summary article here).

    Modern strains of Mycobacterium tuberculosis from the Americas are closely related to those from Europe, supporting the assumption that human tuberculosis was introduced post-contact. This notion, however, is incompatible with archaeological evidence of pre-contact tuberculosis in the New World. Comparative genomics of modern isolates suggests that M. tuberculosis attained its worldwide distribution following human dispersals out of Africa during the Pleistocene epoch, although this has yet to be confirmed with ancient calibration points. Here we present three 1,000-year-old mycobacterial genomes from Peruvian human skeletons, revealing that a member of the M. tuberculosis complex caused human disease before contact. The ancient strains are distinct from known human-adapted forms and are most closely related to those adapted to seals and sea lions. Two independent dating approaches suggest a most recent common ancestor for the M. tuberculosis complex less than 6,000 years ago, which supports a Holocene dispersal of the disease. Our results implicate sea mammals as having played a role in transmitting the disease to humans across the ocean.

    1. Re:Tag #WhereIsTheFuckingPaper by kwyjibo87 · · Score: 2

      I am not sure I believe their theory. It is also possible that people brought the disease to the new world. There is quite a bit of circumstantial evidence for human travel across the Atlantic by the Phoenicians and/or Romans. It is unlikely there was any regular trade, but over the centuries a few ships may have been blown off course, and made a one-way trip. For instance, the bottle gourd, which was used to store water on ships, crossed the Atlantic to Brazil right about that time. Most likely the seeds were brought there on a ship.

      That would be easy enough to test, provided we had archeological samples of Phoenicians / Romans who were infected with M. tuberculosis (Mtb). Then, one could do the same phylogenetic analysis done in the paper that claded with the seal / sea lion Mtb sequences. Of course, the sequence analysis data provided in the paper would probably argue against your hypothesis, as Mtb sequences obtained from infected members of those civilizations would probably clade with modern European Mtb sequences rather than with seal / sea lion Mtb, which it would have to do in order to fit the data in this study.

    2. Re:Tag #WhereIsTheFuckingPaper by ruir · · Score: 2

      It is not only possible, but it documented Portuguese discovers, vikings, Chinese, and people far earlier where there. It was well known by Portuguese fishermen that using certain currents and winds you would reach certain places, however Portugal choose to keep that secret because of other European powers. So in reality, it would not be a one way trip for a few lucky ones.

  4. No problem by PPH · · Score: 2

    We have already undertaken an effort to eradicate the seals. We have found that the most efficient means involves hunters with clubs.

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    Have gnu, will travel.
    1. Re:No problem by tepples · · Score: 2

      That is also the picture, that does not include a puppy

      Young seals and young dogs are both pups.

      or a kitten

      Now I get it: a seal pup looks cute because it combines most of the appearance of a dog with the whiskers of a cat and even shorter legs than a dachshund or corgi.

    2. Re:No problem by Chris+Mattern · · Score: 5, Funny

      "Looks like you've blown a seal." "Just fix it and leave my personal life out of this."

  5. Re:hehehe by Narcocide · · Score: 2

    Just FYI; you don't catch tuberculosis by petting them.

  6. clubbing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    so all that clubbing was retroactively justified.

  7. How do you... by Loki_666 · · Score: 2

    How do you change SEAL into COAT in just four moves?

    SEAL
    CLUB
    CLUB
    CLUB
    COAT :D

  8. pasteurize milk by tomhath · · Score: 2
    One of the main reasons we pasteurize cow's milk is to eliminate tuberculosis

    . It shouldn't be a surprise that other animals could be a vector.

    The pasteurization of milk didn't come into practice until the late 1800s. Back then, tuberculosis was commonly carried by milk. A low-temperature, long-time (LTLT) process, also known as batch pasteurization, was first developed to kill the tuberculosis pathogen. The incidence of tuberculosis contracted from milk fell dramatically, and in fact it no longer makes the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's list of foodborne illnesses