Leprosy, an ancient scourge, largely unchanged in modern era
Saturday, June 22, 2013 - 01:00
in Paleontology & Archaeology
A DNA study finds that the disease did not evolve, but that Europeans developed mutations that made them resistant to it. Leprosy has plagued humans for thousands of years, but a new genetic analysis of the pathogen that causes the disfiguring disease has come to the surprising conclusion that its DNA is essentially unchanged since medieval times.