(plague | National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases) The plague — which in the mid-14th century was also known as the Black Death — devastated swaths of Europe, killing millions in under a ...

Scientists have long debated whether human body lice might have helped drive the rapid spread of the bacteria responsible for the deadly plague in the Middle Ages, known as the Black Death. It’s clear ...

A new laboratory study suggests that human body lice are more efficient at transmitting Yersinia pestis, the bacterium that causes plague, than previously thought, supporting the possibility that they ...

Scientists have long debated whether human body lice might have helped drive the rapid spread of the bacteria responsible for the deadly plague in the Middle Ages, known as the Black Death. It’s clear ...

In a recent study published in the journal PLOS Biology, researchers adapt a strain of human body lice to a membrane feeder to study its infection dynamics with Yersinia pestis, the causative agent of ...

Rats and their fleas take the rap for spreading the plague, but lice that infest people may share the blame. Human body lice can harbor plague-causing bacteria and can transmit the disease by biting, ...

The Black Death killed tens of millions of people in the mid-1300s, but scientists and historians are still trying to figure out how it spread. Wellcome Images via Wikimedia Commons under CC BY 4.0 ...

A fluorescent image of a human body louse with Yersinia pestis infection — that's the cause of the plague — depicted in orange/red in the glands. The plague — which in the mid-14th century was also ...

Fluorescent image of a human body louse with Yersinia pestis infection (orange/red) in the Pawlowsky glands. Y. pestis has been the culprit behind numerous pandemics, including the Black Death of the ...

The plague — which in the mid-14th century was also known as the Black Death — devastated swaths of Europe, killing millions in under a decade. One of the puzzles surrounding this ancient pandemic was ...