The Mutant Genes Behind the Black Death

An anonymous reader writes: Each year, 4 million people visit Yosemite National Park in California. Most bring back photos, postcards and an occasional sunburn. But two unlucky visitors this summer got a very different souvenir. They got the plague. This quintessential medieval disease, caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis and transmitted most often by fleabites, still surfaces in a handful of cases each year in the western United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Its historical record is far more macabre. The plague of Justinian from 541 to 543 decimated nearly half the population in the Mediterranean, while the Black Death of the Middle Ages killed one in every three Europeans.

Now researchers are beginning to reveal a surprising genetic history of the plague. A rash of discoveries show how just a small handful of genetic changes — an altered protein here, a mutated gene there — can transform a relatively innocuous stomach bug into a pandemic capable of killing off a large fraction of a continent.

The most recent of these studies, published in June, found that the acquisition of a single gene named pla gave Y. pestis the ability to cause pneumonia, causing a form of plague so lethal that it kills essentially all of those infected who don't receive antibiotics. In addition, it is also among the most infectious bacteria known. "Yersinia pestis is a pretty kick-ass pathogen," said Paul Keim, a microbiologist at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff. "A single bacterium can cause disease in mice. It's hard to get much more virulent than that."

Comments

Math is fun

[Anonymous Coward]

"decimated nearly half the population"

So it killed 5%?

Re:Math is fun

[BetterThanCaesar]

Even if you don't subscribe to the historical meaning of "decimate", namely "reduce by one tenth (through killing)", that sentence still doesn't make sense because "decimate" never means simply "kill".

This reminds me of the Anchorman quote "60 percent of the time, it works every time."

Re:Math is fun

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny that all people are picking out of this is the minor errors in presentation. The detail at how easy it is to create these nasty things seems more startling to me. Maybe that bio filter on the Tesla X SUV isn't such a bad plan ;-)

Re:Math is fun

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

Yes, I winced when I read that.

FFS, do none of the slashdot editors own a dictionary or know how to find one online?

Re:Math is fun

[Anonymous Coward]

lmgtfy

Re:Math is fun

[Himmy32]

Do you? http://lmgtfy.com/?q=define%3A...


decimate

verb

1. kill, destroy, or remove a large percentage or part of.

"the project would decimate the fragile wetland wilderness"

2. historical - kill one in every ten of (a group of soldiers or others) as a punishment for the whole group.

Re:Math is fun

[tomknight]

Well, after seven iterations of decimation you fall below 50%.

Re:Math is fun

[Anonymous Coward]

You're complaining about the slashdot editors DIRECTLY QUOTING the article? Go complain to the Quanta Magazine editors, and I'm sure they'll have a nice time decimating your attack on their grammar.

Re: Math is fun

[Anonymous Coward]

This guy is why I am getting tired of /.

Re: Math is fun

[Anonymous Coward]

Sometimes, you're Matt Damon. Other times, you're the guy who likes apples.

Re:Math is fun

[Anonymous Coward]

> that sentence still doesn't make sense because "decimate" never means simply "kill"

"decimated nearly half the population"

killed 10% (archaic sense) of 50% (half) the population == 0.1 * 0.5 == 0.05 Q.E.D.

BTW, this is a new low for /.

Re:Math is fun

[AthanasiusKircher]

2. historical - kill one in every ten of (a group of soldiers or others) as a punishment for the whole group.

Just to be clear -- pedantic lunatics have been arguing about this word for years, but in modern English it basically never meant the same as Roman decimatio regarding military practice, except in specific historical discussions.

Go ahead -- look up examples of people using the word back 300 years ago. You'll find that when the word is used to refer to destruction or killing, it means a LARGE AMOUNT, not just 10%. It never primarily meant decimatio in English, no matter how much the pedants want it to. (The word only became common in English in the mid-1600s, and by the late 1600s it clearly meant "to destroy/kill a large portion of" in most English usage.)

Moreover, if you actually trace the early English usage of the word (back in the 1600s), you'll find that when it did mean 1/10th, it didn't necessarily refer to killing at all -- it came from the medieval Latin decimatus, which referred to a TITHE (i.e., 1/10th of your income donated to the church or to taxation). "Decimation" entered English in the 1500s as a synonym for tithing, and though there are a couple military references to "decimate" in the 1600s, the two dictionaries from the time that define the word both include the tithing sense (with only one mentioning the military sense).

From the usage of tithing (and a few examples of a military sense), it rapidly turned into a word for large amount of destruction. Outside of a few random military quotations, it never had a primary English usage equivalent to the Roman army practice. It wasn't until about the 1860s -- over 200 years after decimate came to mean "destroy a large portion of" -- that wacko grammarians decided there was something "wrong" with that usage and have been complaining about it ever since.

Re: Math is fun

[Anonymous Coward]

You read the article?

Re:Math is fun

[Anonymous Coward]

You tried to sound intelligent, and instead you look like a tool. Be less of a dick next time.

Nature provides the solution

[EzInKy]

The reason Europeans were so susceptible to the plague is that they were Europeans, just as the reason Native Americans were so susceptible to small pox was that they were Native Americans. Inbreeding leads to weakness, crossbreeding leads to strength.

Re:Nature provides the solution

[vikingpower]

<quote><p>The reason Europeans were so susceptible to the plague is that they were Europeans, just as the reason Native Americans were so susceptible to small pox was that they were Native Americans. Inbreeding leads to weakness, crossbreeding leads to strength.</p></quote>

The reason that  US Americans are so susceptible to firearm-induced deaths is that they, being Americans, are more vulnerable to bad logic and NRA fallacies than any other people in the world.

Well done, good logic, keep it going, dude.

Re:Nature provides the solution

[Anonymous Coward]

The reason Europeans were so susceptible to the plague is that they were Europeans, just as the reason Native Americans were so susceptible to small pox was that they were Native Americans. Inbreeding leads to weakness, crossbreeding leads to strength.

Too bad it's not literally a Black Death. Then we could release it in America's inner cities and make those neighborhoods safe again. Get rid of the fucking "thug lifers" in one fell swoop!

Re: Nature provides the solution

[Anonymous Coward]

The plague wiped out China as well.The reason Europeans were susceptible to the plague was that they were human.

Re:Nature provides the solution

[WOOFYGOOFY]

You have no idea what you're yacking on about. What you call a "European" circa 500 CE is some admixture of Mediterranean, Near Eastern, Middle Eastern, Eurasian, Russian , Ukrainian and Maikop. The LAST thing the European continent was ever is "isolated" at least not since 2500 BCE.

If you want to see what happens with genes when they're isolated, go to the Galapagos Islands.

Re: Nature provides the solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Tried too hard, friendo. Try some more subtle bait next time.

Re:Nature provides the solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, this concept has legs:

The reason that Europeans are so susceptible to totalitarian government, war, and genocide is that they, being Europeans, are more vulnerable to bad logic and political fallacies than any other people in the world.

Re:Nature provides the solution

[Feral Nerd]

The reason Europeans were so susceptible to the plague is that they were Europeans, just as the reason Native Americans were so susceptible to small pox was that they were Native Americans. Inbreeding leads to weakness, crossbreeding leads to strength.

I agree that crossbreeding builds a strong population and pure bloodlines (aka. inbreeding) leads to weak populations but the rest of your post is wrong. There was steady gene flow between Asia and Europe for millennia whereas the aboriginals of the Americas were isolated after the end of the last ice age and the submergence of Beringia which cut the land bridge between Asia and North America. There were some old-world diseases that caused devastation among Native American populations and there were some new world diseases that caused devastation in the Old World. However, some of the pandemics that wiped out the native populations of the Americas (and that were previously thought to have been introduced pathogens) would in the light of modern research seem to have been entirely home grown. For example the pandemic that wiped out the Aztecs after the Spanish invasion seems to have been a hemorrhagic fever endemic to the Americas. Scholars in the past wrote a whole lot of stuff about pandemics without having the foggiest notion of which pathogens had been involved and those writings unfortunately remained gospel until very recently. Until only a couple of decades ago we had only a limited idea of whether the Black Death pathogen was the same as the modern plague bacteria, there were divided opinions. Some thought he plague of 1346 was an influenza. The last time I looked plague DNA had indeed been found in ancient remains but we still do not know if the Black Death and the Justinian plague were the same or not, the Justinian plague could have been something else altogether. There is also this persistent myth, born out of the 19th and early 20th century fascination with the orient, that all culture flowed from the east (i.e. Ex oriente lux = From the east the light), that medieval Europeans were somehow dirtier, more ignorant and more primitive than oriental people and that that is why the plague spread so rapidly in Europe. Roman bathing culture did not just evaporate with the fall of the old empire and throughout the Middle Ages there were bathhouses in many cities and towns in Europe (in the 13th century Paris had 32 bathouses). If the Medieval European really was so dirty and Asians so clean why did a pandemic spread by fleas spread from Asia to the West? You'd think it would originate among the dirty Europeans and then travel east and dissipate when it reached Asia because of the supposedly superior hygiene of medieval period Asians who would not, or so the conventional theory goes, have had fleas. In actual fact the Plague ravaged Europe and Asia pretty much equally and Asians of the 14th century seem to have been just as flea ridden as their European contemporaries. For example in 1334, a pandemic that was probably the same black death that ravaged Europe a decade later killed 5 million people in Hebei Province China with a death toll of about 90%.

Re:Nature provides the solution

[ColdWetDog]

If you want to see what happens with genes when they're isolated, go to the Galapagos Islands.

Warm beaches and tacky tourist trinkets? I don't understand.

Re:Nature provides the solution

[WOOFYGOOFY]

Yes exactly!

Re:Nature provides the solution

[gtall]

Or Texas.

Re:Nature provides the solution

[dunkelfalke]

There was no distinction between Russians and Ukrainians (and Belarusians too, by the way) until the late Middle Ages, when the Old East Slavic language started to drift apart into Old Russian and Ruthenian due to the area being divided by Lithuanian and Mongolian conquerors. The Lithuanian part much later became the Ukraine and Belarus, the Mongolian part later became Russia after Mongols were overthrown.

Then again, circa 500CE there were neither, it is way before Kievan Rus' was even founded, so at that time that area was just settled by Eastern Slavic tribes and Finns with some Viking settlements along the large waterways.

Re: Nature provides the solution

[Anonymous Coward]

So, you're saying that at the time, there were less than 50 Europeans in Europe?

Re: Nature provides the solution

[Anonymous Coward]

They died because of gay marriage. Fucking diseased faggots!

Re:Nature provides the solution

[Anonymous Coward]

The reason that US Americans are so susceptible to firearm-induced deaths is that they, being Americans, are more vulnerable to bad logic and NRA fallacies than any other people in the world. .

Clearly, they must've been anti-vaccers!

Re: Nature provides the solution

[Barsteward]

there is nothing like a good joke and that's nothing like a good joke

Re:Nature provides the solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Also really big turtles.

Re:Nature provides the solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Point taken. Russian means very north Russia, just sub-Siberia. I use the names of the countries as they stand today. My point is, the whole notion of distinct "races" like dogs have breeds is pure (dangerous c.f 20th Century) folly that can't be left to go unanswered wherever it's encountered.

Dogs do have breeds with distinct morphological and also psychological characteristics *because we deliberately bred them that way over some generations* and moreover given just a few generations of free breeding , which is what humans do and have always done amongst themselves, those distinctions disappear and they become 35-40 lbs with small sagging ears, curly tails and short coats, which is what you see if you go to places in which they're not considered pets by the human population .

Re: Nature provides the solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Looks sound to me.

Yeah, I know, guns don't kill people. Schools kill people.

Re:Nature provides the solution

[dunkelfalke]

Siberia is not north Russia, it is east Russia. In fact, Siberia is Asia and in 500CE would not see Russians for another 1000 years.
Actual northern Russia was settled by Finn tribes back then, not Slavs.

Re:Nature provides the solution

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree that proper paragraphing builds an easier to read response and failing to do so leads to a huge mess that will make most people not even bother...

make up your mind

[Anonymous Coward]

decimated nearly half

Ugh

[Egg Sniper]

"Decimated nearly half the population" means less than 5%. You can't just ignore the prefix 'deci' because everyone uses it incorrectly, dictionary.

Re:Ugh

[Anonymous Coward]

You can't just ignore the prefix 'deci' because everyone uses it incorrectly.

Yes, you can; that's how language works.

Re:Ugh

[Pseudonymous Powers]

You can't just ignore the prefix 'deci' because everyone uses it incorrectly.

Yes, you can; that's how language works.

Well said! I'm just going to choose to interpret your "yes" as "no" and "that's" as "that's not", if that's okay. What? You object? How dare you? My feelings about language are just as valid as anyone's! QUIT OPPRESSING ME, YOU SEMANTICS NAZI!

Re:Ugh

[Anonymous Coward]

Well said! I'm just going to choose to interpret your "yes" as "no" and "that's" as "that's not", if that's okay. What? You object? How dare you? My feelings about language are just as valid as anyone's! QUIT OPPRESSING ME, YOU SEMANTICS NAZI!

Words mean what most of the speakers of the language mean. So your tirade is pointless, unoriginal, and wrong. Utterly wrong.

Re:Ugh

[Pseudonymous Powers]

Words mean what most of the speakers of the language mean. So your tirade is pointless, unoriginal, and wrong. Utterly wrong.

I am aware that any language's mapping of letters and sounds to meanings is completely arbitrary, and furthermore that these mappings evolve continuously. So yes, if enough people start thinking that "chartreuse" means "pink", then indeed it does, at least to them. But for the rest of it, it still means greenish-yellow. The end result is a failure of communication. What I and people like me--pedants--are trying to do is preserve the integrity of communication by nipping some of these uglier and less consistent forms in the bud, before they metastasize and spread throughout the meme pool, and we all just have to live with them. That is literally all I'm saying.

Re:Ugh

[Rufty]

Decimate must always mean a tenth, just like December is always the tenth month.

Re:Ugh

[rubycodez]

But in the case of the "decimate" you'd be wrong. It absolutely does NOT mean killing a tenth of anything.

Meriam-Webster says:
Decimate: v

: to destroy a large number of (plants, animals, people, etc.)

: to severely damage or destroy a large part of (something)

Re:Ugh

[Xtifr]

You're about 400 years too late on the "literally" thing, and much later than that on "decimate". If you're really concerned with nipping things in the bud, you might go for some more recent potential changes. Like singular "you" instead of "thou/thee", and maybe "terrific" for things that don't cause terror.

Simple fact: people don't like being misunderstood, so the circumstances under which your highly contrived chartreuse-means-pink example might arise are basically nonexistent!

Re:Ugh

[KGIII]

How about you use the OED and return with your wisdom...

Pronunciation: Brit. /dsmet/ , U.S. /dsmet/
Etymology:

That is the first definition. The second is also killing 10 people. I stopped at that point. Seeing as it's not an esoteric word we default to the most common meaning. There you have it.

Re:Ugh

[KGIII]

Bah, it ate it...

  1. trans.
Thesaurus
Categories

  a. Chiefly Roman Hist. With reference to military punishment: to select by lot and put to death one in every ten of (a body of soldiers found guilty of desertion, mutiny, or other crime). Also occas. intr.

Re:Ugh

[KGIII]

OED still lists the definition as the GP defines it - one in ten, dead, etc... In fact, it's the first definition given.

Re:Ugh

[Pseudonymous Powers]

You're about 400 years too late on the "literally" thing, and much later than that on "decimate". If you're really concerned with nipping things in the bud, you might go for some more recent potential changes. Like singular "you" instead of "thou/thee", and maybe "terrific" for things that don't cause terror.

Sure, but these battles are never really over. My uncle's still mad about Nixon. China's still griping about the Gilded Age. ISIS is still miffed about the Reconquista. Anti-Semites are still trying to pin the rap for Jesus's execution on the Jews at large.

So if I can change just one person's mind, it's one more point for our team. In a hundred years, we'll have won some battles and lost some. And sure, I'm all for bringing back "thee". And, for that matter, "ye", and by extension the letter called "thorn". Oh, and "ash". And that vulgar "you" genie hath been out of the bottle long enough!

Simple fact: people don't like being misunderstood, so the circumstances under which your highly contrived chartreuse-means-pink example might arise are basically nonexistent!

You think my hypothetical scenario is implausible? Try imagining if Kim Kardashian looked at a pink dress and said, on TV, that it was chartreuse. If you don't find that thought as sadly believable as it is chilling, well, I'm nothing but envious.

Re:Ugh

[Xtifr]

The OED lists its definitions in historical order. The Oxford Online Dictionary, by comparison, lists "kill, destroy, or remove a large percentage"as the first definition, and only has "kill one in ten" as the second definition. Which is marked as "historical". It also includes a usage note that says, "This sense has been superseded by the later, more general sense."

http://www.oxforddictionaries....

Collins Dictionary also has the one-in-ten meaning listed second: http://www.collinsdictionary.c...

As does dictionary.com: http://dictionary.reference.co...

Wiktionary lists the historical meaning first, but also presents evidence suggesting that this sense is basically never used any more, except when complaining about the change in meaning (at least in the British National Corpus): https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki...

Re:Ugh

[Xtifr]

So if I can change just one person's mind, it's one more point for our team.

Yuck. Certainly not my team. I will fight you on the beaches, I will fight you on the landing grounds. I will fight you on the fields and in the streets. I will fight you on the hills. I shall never surrender.

You think my hypothetical scenario is implausible? Try imagining if Kim Kardashian looked at a pink dress and said, on TV, that it was chartreuse. If you don't find that thought as sadly believable as it is chilling, well, I'm nothing but envious.

I think if that happened, social media would instantly be full of people mocking her, just as they mocked Jessica Simpson for the Chicken-of-the-Sea incident. And if social media didn't instantly fill up with mockery, I would say that that demonstrates that the current meaning of the word is not important enough to bother preserving (much like "terrific" or "decimate"—we survived the change in meaning of those terms just fine).

Frankly, I don't see much difference between someone who insists that decimate must mean one-in-ten, and someone who insists that chartreuse is pink. They're both idiots, they're both wrong, and they both have a minor potential to influence the language in possibly-unfortunate ways. Different types of idiots, admittedly, but both still idiots whose influence is mostly bad.

So yes, if you're honestly suggesting that decimate should still only mean kill-one-in-ten, then my respect for you is equal to my respect for Kim Kardashian.

Re:Ugh

[KGIII]

I stick with the OED. It's actually the legal dictionary in my country though I think they've now changed to the American English version. They too go in order from the top down where there is no ambiguity. In this case there's no ambiguity because the word is not being used correctly - that is not ambiguous.

However, feel free to use it however you want. I'll know what you mean.

Re:Ugh

[Anonymous Coward]

You have no idea what a dictionary is or how language works, do you?

An English dictionary is a document of observed usage. It's basically "We've seen people using this word this way", and the particularly large and prestigious ones - like OED also have "and it's been used these ways in the past, and we think it first came about like this".

Every single dictionary that mentions the old Roman origins of the word says it's a historical, or obsolete, or old usage. The order of definitions has nothing whatsoever to do with "correctness".

Re:Ugh

[Xtifr]

The Oxford Online Dictionary is made by the same people who make the OED. The main differences are that the online version is slightly more up-to-date, and has a slightly lower bar for including neologisms. (Those may migrate to the OED if they prove to have some staying power.)

They too go in order from the top down where there is no ambiguity.

What do you mean "in order?" In order of what? The meanings have to go in some order. The OED generally lists meanings in order by age. Other dictionaries frequently list more common meanings above more rare ones, but they're not particularly consistent about it. (Especially since that's a hard thing to measure, even with the modern technology that is revolutionizing the study of language.) And in no dictionary does listing a meaning second (or fifteenth) mean it's wrong.

If the newer meaning were "wrong", it wouldn't be listed at all. If it were colloquial, it would be listed as colloquial. If it were slang, it would be listed as slang. Ditto for nonstandard, dialect, archaic, etc. It's listed as none of those things, in any dictionary. That's because it's not only not wrong, it's perfectly standard.

Heck, if you look up "bit", you'll see a bunch of meanings. A small amount. A piece of metal that goes in a horse's mouth. The business end of a drill. A binary digit. Are all-but-the-first wrong there? Sheesh!

Re:Ugh

[Anonymous Coward]

>> You can't just ignore the prefix 'deci' because everyone uses it incorrectly.

> Yes, you can; that's how language works.

Only at your house. In any other place on Earth, one is free to use a word in its current meaning and in its old, archaic meaning.

It's actually a sign of culture, because most uneducated people who don't know etymology will protest it's wrong.

So decimated is killing a large portion and is also killing 10%, as well as meaning take a tenth of something. It's in the dictionary exactly like that, so no dispute. But even if it was not, since once it has been, it would be valid use. Language only dies when nobody speaks it anymore.

Also, language is not a property. It's not even owned by a majority. The poorest of us can have his own language to speak as he sees fit -- whether others will understand or jump like angry apes is something to ponder by he who speaks.

Re:Ugh

[KGIII]

And each derived from context where it is ambiguous. They start with the most common definition and work their way down in order if there's ambiguity or the word isn't already defined clearly from prior legal cases. They actually sit up there and talk about it for quite some time - I've even seen them go into recess and return to jabber about it some more.

Hmm...

Do you accept that Obama is from Kenya? Is Hawaii now Kenya? Both seem to be in pretty common use. I dare say that using either makes one an idiot and that the definition didn't change. You can guess what I think about the rest.

In this case, there's no ambiguity. It's just wrong. People type "alot" frequently and have no idea what "fewer" means. I suppose you'll want to insist they're correct too? No, they're just wrong.

Either way, those who are aware of the difference should also be smart enough to know it's wrong but know what the author intended. Lots of stupid people get to write, some of them even get to write professionally.

Re:Ugh

[KGIII]

I bet you feel wise when you type "alot."

Re:Ugh

[Xtifr]

And each derived from context where it is ambiguous.

No, there's nothing ambiguous about it. The word you're searching in vain for is polysemy. Means that a word has multiple meanings. (Related to semantics, the study of meaning.) It's a common feature of words in many languages, particularly English. And there frequently is no "most common meaning". There's nothing ambiguous about, e.g., using "can" as a verb vs. a noun, because it's impossible to confuse them in context.

If you really think that "kills one in ten" is the most common meaning of "decimate", though, then it should be easy for you to find some examples of people using it in that sense. Real examples of real people using it that sense, not something you made up. I contend that it hasn't been used to mean that for at least a century. If you just google the word itself, you'll mostly get definitions and people discussing the word. I'm looking for examples of them using the word in what you seem to be claiming is the most common sense. I've checked Google books and Google news, and I can't find a single example. Just find me one, and I'll be impressed (though one example will hardly prove your point).

In this case, there's no ambiguity. It's just wrong. People type "alot" frequently and have no idea what "fewer" means.

Define "wrong". If it's wrong, why does it appear in every dictionary? Including the OED? (Even if they don't list it first, for whatever reason.) Dictionaries don't list things that are "just wrong". They don't list "alot", for example. So, why should I trust you, some random person on the Internet, over actual lexicographers and linguists, who all disagree with you?

(And "alot" is a spelling mistake, which is a whole different kettle of fish. Standardized spelling is much more recent than words having meaning. Words have had meanings for probably tens of thousands of years, if not more. Standardized spelling is only a couple of centuries old. There's a lot of reasons that spelling doesn't shift the way meanings do, but that's getting off topic, and it's really not my field. Bottom line: bad analogy.)

As for "fewer", pretty much everyone knows exactly what it means. The word that cause confusion is "less". Some idiots believe that because "fewer" is only used with countable nouns, that that means that "less" can only be used with non-countable nouns. That would make sense if the words were designed to complement each other, but they're weren't designed, and they're completely unrelated. Less is much older and has been used with both countable and uncountable nouns for over a thousand years. Claiming that it's "wrong" to say "10 items or less" is simple linguistic ignorance. Saying "10 items or fewer" is also acceptable, of course, but more stilted.

Any more dumb linguist superstitions you want to throw at me? No splitting infinitives? No ending sentences with prepositions?

Re:Ugh

[KGIII]

So you're saying Obama's a Muslim terrorist because that's common use and it must be true even if it's wrong... You can support these people using the word inappropriately, incorrectly even, if you want. I'll just remember you as the guy who calls Obama a terrorist.

Re:Ugh

[dave420]

Do you even know what you're discussing any more? "Decimate" has many definitions, the one you like the most is the oldest, most archaic. Its meaning has since changed to mean "destroy by a lot, usually by killing". Definitions change over time. The order they are listed in dictionaries is arbitrary, but each dictionary usually has its own system. The one you chose has the oldest definitions first, hence it being on top.

As we are discussing words and not entire sentences, your Obama/Muslim/Kenya thing is just bizarre, and only serves to make you look really confused about the difference between "word", "sentence", and "bullshit".

Re:Ugh

[KGIII]

Muslim is not a word? Kenya is not a word? Sheesh. They've obviously redefined those. That makes them right. You might as well use "alot" and say, "I have less dollars."

So, what does all of this mean...

[Anonymous Coward]

...in today's environment?

Weaponizing in 3..2..

Re:So, what does all of this mean...

[kav2k]

Still easily treatable with antibiotics.

Re:So, what does all of this mean...

[currently_awake]

The abuse of antibiotics for fattening up farm animals means we keep creating antibiotic resistant plagues.

Re:So, what does all of this mean...

[Coisiche]

There are numerous antibiotic resistant strains of other things around to provide clues on how to make a weaponized version that can't be easily treated with antibiotics.

Although that's maybe a lot of effort. They'll be looking for a lazier way to make bacteriological weapons.

Re:So, what does all of this mean...

[Anonymous Coward]

Really? Can you cite an example of a "plague" caused by feeding livestock antibiotics? Despite all the FUD, it has never happened.

Re:So, what does all of this mean...

[Applehu Akbar]

The technology to produce bacterial weapons is the same technology we need to produce fast defenses against such things. A society that recuses itself from genetic engineering actually attracts GM terrorists, in the same way that those gun-free school zones attract killers.

Re:So, what does all of this mean...

[ChrisMaple]

On the other hand, antibiotic-resistant staph infections have become a deadly problem in hospitals.

sigh

[argStyopa]

"decimated nearly half the population in the Mediterranean"

So unless it really killed 1/10 of half the population of the Med basin, you don't know what 'decimated' means?

It's ok, it's not like this stuff is edited.

Re:sigh

[RabidReindeer]

We know what "decimated" means:

1) To reduce by 1 tenth, Roman military practice

2) To reduce by a significant amount. Modern usage.

The Romans haven't been decimating for about 1700 years now. We don't think there's much doubt as to which definition most people are using these days.

Re:sigh

[Captain Splendid]

We don't think there's much doubt as to which definition most people are using these days.

This whole discussion proves otherwise. Nerds love their pointless pedantry.

Re:sigh

[Anonymous Coward]

So it reduced nearly half the population by a "significant" amount? What does that even mean?

Re:sigh

[rubycodez]

It is not pedantry when they are wrong. It is just ignorance coupled with ineducability.

Re:sigh

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no meaningful discussion on slashdot when there's a typo or a grammatical error in the summary. Ever.

Re:sigh

[budgenator]

"decimated nearly half the population in the Mediterranean"

So unless it really killed 1/10 of half the population of the Med basin, you don't know what 'decimated' means?

It's ok, it's not like this stuff is edited.

So it didn't decimate but semimated the Europeans, not to be confused with inseminated.

Re:sigh

[RabidReindeer]

That's not doubt, however. That's - as you say - pointless pedantry.

I believe in precision as much as anyone, but they need to tow the line. If we give free reign to endless repetition's of the pointless, their burying us in irrelevancies and the discussion looses it's meaning.

Re:sigh

[Captain Splendid]

*golf clap*

Usage changes meaning

[drinkypoo]

"Decimated nearly half the population" means less than 5%. You can't just ignore the prefix 'deci' because everyone uses it incorrectly, dictionary.

"Decimate" hasn't meant "killed every tenth man by lot" for a lot of years. It's usually not used with exact percentages, but it's often used for percentages other than ten.

Re:Usage changes meaning

[Pseudonymous Powers]

"Decimated nearly half the population" means less than 5%. You can't just ignore the prefix 'deci' because everyone uses it incorrectly, dictionary.

"Decimate" hasn't meant "killed every tenth man by lot" for a lot of years. It's usually not used with exact percentages, but it's often used for percentages other than ten.

That is literally what I was just about to say. Words mean whatever we want, whenever we want! This is also why I pay all my debts in U.S. dollhairs.

Re:Usage changes meaning

[MyAlternateID]

"Decimated nearly half the population" means less than 5%. You can't just ignore the prefix 'deci' because everyone uses it incorrectly, dictionary.

"Decimate" hasn't meant "killed every tenth man by lot" for a lot of years. It's usually not used with exact percentages, but it's often used for percentages other than ten.

It was a tactic used by the Roman military commanders. If the soldiers grossly underperformed, the commander would line them all up and order that every tenth man be beaten to death by the nine men around him. The Romans didn't fuck around.

From the psychological effect this inflicted on the remaining 90%, the word has a connotation of doing severe damage. Personally I might use it to illustrate this kind of meaning, but not in combination with an actual percentage. I would combine it with actual numbers only if I intended to convey the original meaning. That way it's clear whether the word is being used figuratively or literally. The wording of the summary is just sloppy; it's the kind of thing a competent editor would have corrected.

Re:Usage changes meaning

[PopeRatzo]

If the soldiers grossly underperformed, the commander would line them all up and order that every tenth man be beaten to death by the nine men around him.

Can we adopt that policy for GOP presidential candidates? It would make the debates more interesting and the base would love it.

Re:Usage changes meaning

[codeButcher]

[Decimation] was a tactic used by the Roman military commanders. If the soldiers grossly underperformed, the commander would line them all up and order that every tenth man be beaten to death by the nine men around him. The Romans didn't fuck around.

Should have told Ringelmann about that one....

Re:Usage changes meaning

[Anonymous Coward]

It was a tactic used by the Roman military commanders. If the soldiers grossly underperformed, the commander would line them all up and order that every tenth man be beaten to death by the nine men around him. The Romans didn't fuck around.

It's been used in more modern times too.
The Swedish soldiers would play dice to pick out the tenth to be killed during the 30 year war.
It is said that the Italians used this form of punishment during the first world war after the battle at Isonzo.

Re:Usage changes meaning

[blazer1024]

That is literally what I was just about to say. Words mean whatever we want, whenever we want! This is also why I pay all my debts in U.S. dollhairs.

Ha! These dollhairs were made in China!

Re:Usage changes meaning

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

It's usually not used with exact percentages, but it's often used for percentages other than ten.

And that would be wrong.

Re:Usage changes meaning

[rubycodez]

No, educate your stupid ignorant self before spewing. We have plenty of words with latin syllables that have completely different meaning than denotative one.

Decimate: v

: to destroy a large number of (plants, animals, people, etc.)

: to severely damage or destroy a large part of (something)

  -- Meriam-Webster

Re:Usage changes meaning

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly how it was when I worked at siebel systems, may it rest in pieces along with its 'workforce improvement program'.

Re:Usage changes meaning

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

My my, someone seems prickly today....too much starch in your undies? Why so much hatred? Is that your typical response to someone who disagrees with you? If so, that's kind of sad.

Anyway, yes, words can change colloquial meaning over time.

For example, "literally" has now come to mean "figuratively", due to the excessive hyperbole that most people seem to engage in these days.A complete reversal of meaning which seems stupid to me.

That said, tthere are plenty of places where reversal of meaning has happened, such as the word "nice". It used to be an insult of sorts, meaning ‘stupid’ or ‘ignorant’. Later it came to mean ‘coy' or 'reserved’, and then it morphed again to mean 'subtle' and/or 'fine'. It finally became accepted in the current sense, which is 'good' or 'pleasant'.

So yeah, it does happen. But as a cranky old word-Luddite, I'd prefer to use "devastated" in place of 'decimated'. Maybe in 50 years when I'm happily dead and buried the word will be uniformly accepted as having the same meaning as "devastated". :)

And now I must go have lunch, because I'm literally starving to death here.

Cheers

Re:Usage changes meaning

[rubycodez]

Every time the word "decimate" appears properly used according to modern usage, a bunch of barking seals sound off about the archaic meaning without once consulting a dictionary.

The modern meaning of "decimated" is NOT colloquial, it is the educated usage of the word. On the other hand, your use of "literally" instead of "veritably" is indeed a colloquialism that is incorrect.

Re:Usage changes meaning

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure! Let's try it on the next Dem Debate first.

Re:Usage changes meaning

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

On the other hand, your use of "literally" instead of "veritably" is indeed a colloquialism that is incorrect.

No it's not, it's a perfectly cromulent way to stultify the word.

Re:Usage changes meaning

[AthanasiusKircher]

So yeah, it does happen. But as a cranky old word-Luddite, I'd prefer to use "devastated" in place of 'decimated'.

I personally avoid using the word "decimate" at all, because no matter how you use it, some member of your audience will either be confused or annoyed.

Maybe in 50 years when I'm happily dead and buried the word will be uniformly accepted as having the same meaning as "devastated". :)

Well, that time of "uniform acceptance" was around the year 1700. It's had that primary meaning since then. It was only in the 1860s or so that classicizing grammarians got annoyed with that usage and started trying to stamp it out... they obviously haven't been very successful, though they have convinced a lot of people (like you) that a usage which has been around for about 350 years is "new" and "incorrect."

Re:Usage changes meaning

[AthanasiusKircher]

For example, "literally" has now come to mean "figuratively", due to the excessive hyperbole that most people seem to engage in these days.A complete reversal of meaning which seems stupid to me.

Just to be clear here, by "now come to mean," you are referring to about 150 years ago, correct? That's roughly when people started complaining about how "everyone" was misusing "literally" to mean its opposite.

It's unclear why the pedants are so up in arms about "literally." There are plenty of other examples of similar words that shifted to their opposite. For example, "apparent/apparently" and "probable/probably." To Shakespeare, an "apparent villain" was someone who was clearly a villain -- it was obvious. To us, an "apparent villain" is someone who usually is NOT a villain, but maybe appears to be so at first glance. To Shakespeare, something that was "probable" was able to be clearly proved, i.e., it was certain to be the truth. To us, something that is "probable" is likely but definitely uncertain.

It's weird once you actually start investigating which words the "grammar squad" decides to go after. Most of these things originated with people who randomly started bitching about certain words back in the mid-to-late 1800s. Some common usages were fine, others were singled out to be deplored. Who knows why....

(By the way, I don't use "literally" to mean "figuratively," which strikes me as a bit silly too. But that's only because one can still use "literally" to mean "literally." If it ceases to mean that in most contexts, I'll just stop using the word altogether.)

Re:Usage changes meaning

[BoogieChile]

I could point out that as long as you continue to not eat, you are literally starving to death, it just may take a while.

But that would probably be unhelpful.

Re:Usage changes meaning

[Anonymous Coward]

Reversals might seem stupid, but occur, likely by the same mechanism of sarcasm. In medieval England, for instance, "awful" and "artificial" were terms of high praise, meaning then roughly what Americans would now use "awe-inspiring" and "very well-crafted".

My guess is that these shifts are Older Than Radio but don't have firm evidence in hand to back that up.

Re:Usage changes meaning

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

But that would probably be unhelpful.

That would be correct.

"My name is The Plague"

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no right and wrong. There's only fun and boring.

Re:"My name is The Plague"

[DroolTwist]

And a 60 year prison sentence sounds pretty boring to me.

Can we genetically alter HIV

[Anonymous Coward]

So that it only kills niggers? Especially gay niggers.

Re:Can we genetically alter HIV

[Anonymous Coward]

So that it only kills niggers? Especially gay niggers.

Of course we can. But I don't think it will work on bigotery and stupidity.

But it did not kill all!

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

Half the population survived and got immunity to it. These pathogens traveled along the trade routes by land to three large population centers, India, China and Europe, Arabia and the Silk route forming land trading routes. They will leave behind an immunized population but sustain themselves by hitting these population centers and rebounding some 20 years later to find fresh unimmunized populations. And several such iterations strengthened the immunity of all the inhabitants of the old World. In each iteration these pathogens got more and more lethal. When the sea routes opened these pathogens "seeded" multiple locations simultaneously in Europe creating very virulent outbreaks.

When Europeans arrived to colonize the New World, their small population should have been wiped out by the diseases unfamiliar to them in the New World. But they were not. Instead the much larger (than the colonists) New World population got devastated by the Old World diseases.

This explanation came out as a 12 page (The arrow of disease) article by Jared Diamond in 1992 in the Discover magazine. Later it was expanded into a Pulitzer winning book, Guns, Germs and Steel

Re:But it did not kill all!

[T.E.D.]

In each iteration these pathogens got more and more lethal....This explanation came out as a 12 page (The arrow of disease) article by Jared Diamond in 1992 in the Discover magazine. Later it was expanded into a Pulitzer winning book, Guns, Germs and Steel

IIRC, Jared's argument in GG&S was that each iteration became less and less lethal. No only did the humans with better natural protections survive and have offspring, but the disease itself survived better if it didn't kill off all its hosts, so it had evolutionary pressure to be less deadly and more endemic.

Re:But it did not kill all!

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

Well, the poor choice of words is my mistake, not Diamond's. The pathogens get more and more virulent, but the arms race makes the defenses stronger and stronger. For the populations that have never been exposed to all the mutated strains of the pathogen they get more and more lethal.

Re:But it did not kill all!

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not sure "immunity" to plague was the result. Some resistance, OK. But also the mass death decreased the density of individuals and the absolute numbers of potential victims. I believe there was even some general increase in hygiene and a lessening of factors favourable to rats and fleas, though I'm not sure about this.

What has always surprised and impressed me is that the Black Death eventually went away. And there was no certain explanation of it by the people who were affected. Many thought it was the judgement of God, for instance.

Which only goes to show, I suppose, that no matter how bad things are, they can always get worse. But they can get better too.

Re:But it did not kill all!

[ChrisMaple]

The New World was already in decline long before colonization started.

Semantics

[Anonymous Coward]

"A single bacterium can cause disease in mice. It's hard to get much more virulent than that."

So, is it a virus or a bacteria? Make up your mind, man!

Re:Semantics

[Anonymous Coward]

You do not know what the word "virulent" means.

Re:Semantics

[ColdWetDog]

You do not know what the word "virulent" means.

Well, he's trying - from the OED:

Syllabification: virulent
Pronunciation: /vir(y)lnt/

Origin

Late Middle English (originally describing a poisoned wound): from Latin virulentus, from virus 'poison' (see virus).

And they say we have nothing to worry about

[WOOFYGOOFY]

"Now researchers are beginning to reveal a surprising genetic history of the plague. A rash of discoveries show how just a small handful of genetic changes â" an altered protein here, a mutated gene there â" can transform a relatively innocuous stomach bug into a pandemic capable of killing off a large fraction of a continent."

And people say we have nothing to fear from the biohacking movement.

Re:And they say we have nothing to worry about

[Anonymous Coward]

No... I don't think anybody says that.

Re:And they say we have nothing to worry about

[Anonymous Coward]

Hum, I guess is all you need is a little antibiotic resistance added to Yersinia pestis and boom. Are antibiotic resistance gene sequences even on the list of ones that raise flags?

Re:And they say we have nothing to worry about

[WOOFYGOOFY]

Exactly. To get some idea how well the democratization of knowledge serves as a defense against BadGuys, take a look at how we're doing on the internet. There we have full democratic access to a technology of mid-value intellectual difficulty. Do you feel like you can defend your computer against all created viruses trojans etc. or do you turn to professionals to provide you with tools to do that job?

And about those professionals. How are they doing?

Last I looked, they were basically getting a near zero-score for near zero-days.

That's because they're good at defending themselves against what they recognize and know about and can fingerprint but essentially terrible at recognizing the uncatalogued attack, the novel approach, the slightly innovative variation.

I point this out because I hear the argument that the more DIY biohacking we do, the better able we will be to defend ourselves. It really hasn't worked out that way. Things- people, cats dogs puzzles- go together one way. They can be taken apart in an infinity of ways.

The surface of attack is infinite within the bounds of the target's particular characteristics. That's not a good castle to have to defend. The fewer people who can attack the castle, the better.

Re:And they say we have nothing to worry about

[ColdWetDog]

Bacteria as a bioweapon probably won't ever work to wipe out populations. You certainly could wreck havoc in clusters of humans with poor infrastructure (refuge camps, slums, Trenton, New Jersey) but even without antibiotics we know enough to slow down the transmission to prevent mass catastrophe. Yes, it would be a good 'terror weapon' since at least the US population seems to be scared of it's own shadow much less any real boogy man (cf, the Ebola scare) but as far as a tactical weapon it has a lot of drawbacks.

Re:And they say we have nothing to worry about

[WOOFYGOOFY]

It's not about bacteria per se, it's about genes. It's about mass tinkering with genes just to see what can happen. Bad idea. Bad idea. Very. Bad. Idea.

Sorry it goes against my grain too, but some technologies are better restricted, limited, denied and otherwise controlled by responsible parties who can at least be presumed to not be, you know, totally insane.

So far, the US govt hasn't released a DIY nuke kit and neither has the former USSR.

That's where the real power utility of the herd comes in. No one person is going to be left to go their own way and do whatever their mind can conceive of without other people second guessing them, watching what they're doing, checking on them and not just trusting them or worse, making it an article of faith or what have you.

Or worst of all, as some asshole in some university held forth the other day on /. - all science is protected by 1st Amendment rights, therefore get outta my way.

We have survived as a society so far by a enacting a complex web of limitations, laws, circumventions, tricks, treaties, maneuverings, policies, norms and *other* against the things which would threaten us. It's a patchwork framework, just like everything in biology.

We will continue to survive by *not* raising any principle higher than the survival principle, aka The Constitution Is Not A Suicide pact Principle.

People with extremist ideologies like that professor need to not be listened to. And yes, extremism in defense of *just any form of* liberty is indeed a vice.

   

Re:And they say we have nothing to worry about

[jedidiah]

> Do you feel like you can defend your computer against all created viruses trojans etc. or do you turn to professionals to provide you with tools to do that job?

On the one hand I do "depend on professionals". On the other hand, I simply make better choices based on what's available. Suitable tools have been out there for some time.

Most people just don't bother to use them.

It's really other people's choices that I have to worry about. Unfortunately most computer users are the digital equivalent of anti-vaxers.

Re:And they say we have nothing to worry about

[budgenator]

Firstly there is a vaccine for Y. pestis, I know I've had it, and secondly a good stiff dose of Y. pseudotuberculosis is going to give you the shits, but most likely leave as immune to Y. pestis as you can get.

Re:And they say we have nothing to worry about

[Anonymous Coward]

You release it at major transportation hubs and by the time people start getting symptoms it's already everywhere. You'll have more havoc in areas with better infrastructure. Refuge camps, islands, etc... are easily quarantined. Tap into a water main right out of the sterilization plant and you've just infected entire cities and the cleaning costs could be crazy. Remember what a few letters of anthrax did? A bioweapon would be an excellent choice to kill tons of people. The problem is keeping it from killing your people. They aren't very controllable.

And American Indians

[GWBasic]

The plague of Justinian from 541 to 543 decimated nearly half the population in the Mediterranean, while the Black Death of the Middle Ages killed one in every three Europeans.

Don't forget to include the American Indians. The plague decimated them, too.

Re:And American Indians

[Anonymous Coward]

More small pox than bubonic plague.

Surprising?

[Anonymous Coward]

People seem surprised that a single gene could transform an innocuous microorganism into a deadly one.

But this is exactly like software, where a single line of code can turn a secure protocol implementation into an exploitable attack vector.

We have plenty of examples of tiny changes leading to huge headaches in the software world - the apple goto bug, the Debian openssl debacle, etc.

So this isn't surprising.

"Anonomous Reader" != Carrie Arnold?

[T.E.D.]

The entire text of this article was lifted directly from the first linked article, but not attributed to its author Carrier Arnold at Quanta Magazine.

I don't generally want to be the /. stereotype complaining about editing, but this is just flat out unethical. If you are going to post or excerpt the unmodified content of someone else's work, you should at least credit them properly. Unless the "Anonomous Reader" was actually Carrie Arnold, that was not done here.

Re:"Anonomous Reader" != Carrie Arnold?

[jedidiah]

Except it's not an "article". It's a summary of the original content. It's basically a headline. So there's really no reason to get your panties in a bunch.

You really don't have any standing unless YOU are secretly Carrie Arnold.

FDR

[Foobar of Borg]

"We have nothing to fear but fear itself. And the Plague. That shit will kill us all!"

Greenish yelow or yellowish green?

[tepples]

"chartreuse" [...] still means greenish-yellow

Except there appears to be confusion as to whether it's greenish yellow or yellowish green. An sRGB triplet such as #7FFF00 or #DFFF00 is a bit more precise, but it requires to be familiar with sRGB.

Yes, even nastier when it's radioactive.

[jpellino]

Worked on a research team back in 1980 to try and find the iron-uptake chemical in this bug. To do so we had to feed it Iron 57. Most of the team was simply hyper-aware. Some were downright jumpy.

Captain Tripps

[PincushionMan]

Is anyone else thinking of the Captain Tripps virus from "The Stand"? Sounds just like it - get pneumonia, fever, contagious as all get out, then you die, drowning in your own snot after around 5 to 7 days. Maybe not exact, but close enough for me, anyway.

Now all we need is for the government to weaponize it, and history follows fiction.

As an upside of getting the plague

[Khyber]

Survivors of the Back Death seem to acquire part of a beneficial genetic mutation that gets passed on in full if they breed with another Black Death survivor - resistance to most known forms of HIV.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_...

Re: As an upside of getting the plague

[Anonymous Coward]

This has been experimentally disproven. The CCR5delta32 mutation does not protect against plague: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v427/n6975/full/427606a.html

Re: As an upside of getting the plague

[Anonymous Coward]

They didn't say protects against plague, they said protects against HIV.

Decimated half?

[preflex]

From TFS:

The plague of Justinian from 541 to 543 decimated nearly half the population in the Mediterranean,

So, it killed almost 5% of them? That's strange, I thought it would have been a lot more.

Bubonic Plague

[tuxgeek]

I used to live in Tahoe.
Occasionally during the summer months, someone would contract bubonic plague after their house cats were outside and near ground squirrel burrows.
It is transmitted by fleas of the common ground squirrel in the area. Don't remember the species.

The infestation of infected fleas usually gets worse in drought years.

Plague fleas are found all over the sierras, Yosemite as well.

MyAlternateID = "Run, Forrest: RUN!!!"

[Anonymous Coward]

See subject: ...On hosts adding speed, security, reliability & anonymity - doing so using LESS yet doing FAR MORE than weak slow usermode messagepassing, RAM, & CPU overuse overheads (vs. hosts in kernelmode, native to your system vs. "bolting on 'MoAr'")

FACT:

It can't be done & you know it - Plus, YOU downmodding this same post TWICE before http://slashdot.org/comments.p... AND http://slashdot.org/comments.p... & running from a fair challenge says it all for me, weasel - you "talk big" on discussion, but you can't face that one, now can you? NOPE! You fail...

APK

P.S.=> You wanted opinions on my program? Ok, here's a couple:

"I like your host file system." - by Karmashock (2415832) on Wednesday September 09, 2015 @03:57PM (#50489401)

+

"his hosts program is actually pretty good" - by xenotransplant (4179011) on Monday August 10, 2015 @03:34PM (#50287195)

Where's YOUR PROGRAM (it's not) that others like & find effective that YOU created, hmmm?

... apk

Re:MyAlternateID = "Run, Forrest: RUN!!!"

[MyAlternateID]

You just can't stand that not everyone values your dinky little hosts program. How amusing!