Black Death's Genetic Code Reconstructed

Remember Black Death? You know, the medieval plague that swept across Europe and killed off about half of that continent's population? Well, it's back ... at least in genetic form thanks to science:

The genetic code of the germ that caused the Black Death has been reconstructed by scientists for the first time.
The researchers extracted DNA fragments of the ancient bacterium from the teeth of medieval corpses found in London.
They say the pathogen is the ancestor of all modern plagues.

I mean, what could go wrong? Link

good ol' antibiotics will clear that up in no time :o)

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since there have been rodents carrying the plague since the middle ages in remote places , i would think plague dna of today would be similar to the dna they got from the corpse in london?

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@swami - probably, but there's no way of telling for sure until you can compare the two genomes.

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swami, they're no longer confident that the plague now is the same one - in fact, by looking at how it spread, some researchers have become convinced that the Black Death wasn't bubonic.

Also, the Black Death probably only killed about 1/3rd of the population, not 1/2.

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