Yikes!!!

Bubonic Plague Confirmed In Teen’s Death Its not just for the Dark Ages

When I Hear News Like This...

...I think there must be a God:

AIDS Is Now Running Rampant Amongst ISIS Fighters And Its Getting So Bad That They Even Set Up An AIDS Center

Assholes

...anti-vacsers, that is:

10th measles case confirmed in Toronto

New case of measles confirmed in Toronto

Kinda Scary, If You Ask Me

Hunting for Germs in an Ancient Graveyard

Researchers scour Italian cemetery for DNA of ancient strains of cholera

"An Italian church graveyard could preserve more than bodies: Researchers are searching the cemetery for the DNA of ancient strains of cholera.

Cholera is a deadly diarrheal disease caused by a bacterium called Vibrio cholerae. In the 1850s, an epidemic swept the world. In 1854, during this epidemic, London doctor John Snow famously traced one outbreak to a contaminated water pump in the Soho district of the city. The case is still cited today as a triumph of epidemiology.

Cholera still kills today. According to the World Health Organization, there were more than 100,000 cases in 2013, and periodic epidemics send that number soaring. In 2011, for example, there were nearly 600,000 cholera cases worldwide, driven largely by an outbreak that occurred after the 2010 earthquake in Haiti."

And in other "science" news:

Evolution theory confirmed: Big is better, Stanford researchers say

Blowback...

...big time.

Meet The Doctors Who Are Rejecting Unvaccinated Patients

"Facing the biggest measles outbreak since 2000, pediatricians are speaking out with a sharp message for their unvaccinated patients: Do not enter.

They say this zero-tolerance policy will protect vulnerable patients in their waiting rooms — such as infants and those with weak immune systems — from exposure to a virus their bodies are not equipped to fight."

Bumps or Mumps

And here I thought hockey players would be immune to this sort of thing. After all, they are really tough:

Fleury out for Penguins, being tested for mumps

Pittsburgh Penguins’ Sidney Crosby is latest NHL player to have the mumps

The Black Death

Bubonic Plague Outbreak Kills 40 In Madagascar

Plague in the United States

Plague

"Plague is a deadly infectious disease....

Until June 2007, plague was one of the three epidemic diseases specifically reportable to the World Health Organization (the other two being cholera and yellow fever)."

[--]

"Plague is still endemic in some parts of the world."

Yikes!!! What with this and ebola, I think Mom Nature is culling this planet.

Forget Smallpox Blankets...

...thank your lucky stars we live in an age of antiboitics, vaccines, inoculations:

"The greatest killer in the history of mankind."

Six and a half centuries of it.

For My Friend, Tom

Speaking Of...

...rodents.

Digging...

...up the past. It's amazing what they find:

One of the oldest cases of tuberculosis is discovered Seven thousand years, or more, and I had the dumb luck to be born just about the time when effective treatment and prevention routines were developed!!

Discovery of 1.4 million-year-old fossil closes human evolution gap

"Humans have a distinctive hand anatomy that allows them to make and use tools. Apes and other nonhuman primates do not have these distinctive anatomical features in their hands, and the point in time at which these features first appeared in human evolution is unknown.

Now, a University of Missouri researcher and her international team of colleagues have found a new hand bone from a human ancestor who roamed the earth in East Africa approximately 1.42 million years ago. They suspect the bone belonged to the early human species, Homo Erectus. The discovery of this bone is the earliest evidence of a modern human-like hand, indicating that this anatomical feature existed more than half a million years earlier than previously known."

Remember that next time you're peeling potatoes.

Why did anatomically modern humans replace European Neandertals 40,000 years ago? They're still trying to figure out what did the Neandertals in. I maintain they are still with us. Some of them are posting comments on SNN's website.

And speaking of creepy-crawly things: Tiktaalik roseae shows signs of rear-leg development

That was long before we began dragging our knuckles.

You Think You've Got It Bad?

Imagine dealing with this: