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Giant Asian Gerbils May Have Caused the Black Death
Dave Knott writes: Rats, long believed to be the scourge that brought the Black Death to 14th-century Europe, may not be the disease-bearing scoundrels we thought they were. Scientists have shifted blame for the medieval pandemic responsible for millions of deaths to a new furry menace: giant gerbils from Asia. University of Oslo researchers, working with Swiss government scientists, say a "pulse" of bubonic plague strains arrived sporadically from Asia. They posit the Yersinia pestis bacterium was likely carried over the Silk Road via fleas on the giant gerbils during intermittent warm spells. The fleas could have then transmitted the disease to humans. The Black Death is believed to have killed up to 200 million people in Europe. Though very rare today, cases of the plague still arise in Africa, Asia, the Americas and parts of the former Soviet Union, with the World Health Organization reporting 783 cases worldwide in 2013, including 126 deaths.
"Yeah, gerbils can really be a pain in the ass." - Richard Gere
GOUSes? I don't think they exist.
-Dave
There must be a million jokes to be made with that title.
Table-ized A.I.
...then there's a Giant Rat of Sumatra joke in there somewhere.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Go for the eyes Boo!
This pandemic is generally understood as the consequence of a singular introduction of Yersinia pestis, after which the disease established itself in European rodents over four centuries.
The microbe lived in the damned rats for 400 years. The rats are responsible for black death. The article merely claims the microbe originated in Asia and was introduced to Europe via gerbils on the land route.
writing from memory, any errors mine, not the article's:
Original theory was that the microbes could not survive the cold climates and long distance travel of the silk road. But the direct sea route shortened the journey and provided a warmer passage. Thus the black death microbe traveled on rats on ships. This article moves the date of introduction of the microbe to 1347 CE, at least 130 years before Barthalomiyo (sp?) Diaz rounded cape of storms, and Vasco Da Gama reached India.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Rodents of Unusual Size.
I don't think they exist.
In Middle Ages Europe, if something was "made in China" it meant almost on-one could afford it.
Plague is endemic to the prairie dogs of the Four Corners area of the US (where NM, Arizona, Utah and Colorado meet). Every year it gets transmitted to a few people. Presumably early diagnosis and antibiotics will take care of it, but occasionally it will go missed until too late.
Of bigger concern in that area is hantavirus.
-- Alastair
No, is not rat, is Siberian hamster!
I downloaded the actual paper and discovered that the gerbil in question is Rhombomys opimus, more commonly known as the great gerbil.
Here is the Wikipedia page in case you want to learn more or see some pictures:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G...
Yeah, they've gotten more visibility since the Kia comercials.
That is all.