A review of the latest genetic evidence suggests infectious diseases are tens of thousands of years older than previously thought, and that they could jump between species of ‘hominin’. Researchers...
In the animal world, monogamy refers to a pair that have an exclusive sexual relationship during the period of breeding and rearing of offspring. With respect to humans, it is a model of affective-...
A group of researchers has uncovered telling clues about the underlying surface shapes and colors of 15 Fayum mummy portraits created during the Greco-Roman and Coptic periods in Egypt. Their...
Feeling depressed? Can’t kick the tobacco habit? Sun causing skin lesions? Allergies bothering you? Some people of today may blame their Neanderthal ancestry in part for some of these health problems...
Prior to the Romans, Greece was the only part of Europe to have had toilets. But by the peak of the Roman Empire in the 3rd century AD, the Romans had introduced sanitation to much of their domain,...
In 1495, a new disease spread throughout Europe: syphilis. Christopher Columbus was said to have brought this sexually transmitted disease back from his voyage to America. At least, that has been the...
Closely related ancestors of the bacteria that cause the bubonic plague may be millions of years older than the 14 th century, when the disease devastated Asia and killed more than half of Europe’s...
Over the years, scientists have found evidence of cancers, heart disease, starvation, ulcers, smallpox, tuberculosis and other infections in ancient remains from all over the world. Now, for the...
Read Part 1 Science had to wait until the nineteenth century to banish the idea of a supposed supernatural origin of the plague. The fear of a pandemic on a global scale persisted for four...
In recent months, health authorities in California, USA, have been obliged to report two cases of the plague that appeared in West Coast state. In the state of Colorado two other people also...
German researchers have discovered signs of what may be the earliest known case of leukemia on a 7,000 year old skeleton. The victim of the disease was a female individual who appears to have been in...
Rule 1, on page 1 of the book of war, is 'Do not march on Moscow.' – Bernard Montgomery, British military figure. About 675,000 men of Napoleon's Grand Army set out for Moscow to conquer Russia in...
History paints a bleak picture of the devastating effects that disease, contamination, or poison can have on humans. But with those hard lessons came experience and knowledge, and mankind has...
Known as the blind daughter in Finnish mythology, Loviatar is the goddess of death and disease. Born from the union of Tuoni, the god of death, and his underworld queen Tuonetar, Loviatar is...
The fear and stigma attached to the terrible disease of leprosy has endured for millennia. Answers have long been sought regarding this mysterious ancient ailment, and now archaeologists have...
Scientists recently examined tissue samples from tuberculosis-infected bodies that were naturally mummified in a church crypt in Vac, Hungary. Researchers found that the tuberculosis that killed them...
Latest research shows that schistosomiasis, a disease caused by flatworm parasites, may have been spread by earliest crop irrigation in ancient Mesopotamia, suggesting early technology exacerbated...
Forensic archaeologists have published a new study in the International Journal of Osteoarchaeology, which suggests that Christopher Columbus's crew was struck with scurvy, a fatal disease caused by...
Researchers from the University of Zurich and the University of Oklahoma have analysed the dental plaque from 1,000-year-old skeletons in a medieval cemetery in Germany. They had the idea that the...
Despite intensive research over many decades on one of the most famous kingdoms of the ancient world , scientists still know little about the diseases which plagued the people of Mesopotamia. An...
New research conducted at the University of Texas Anderson Cancer Center is finally unearthing some of the ancient mysteries behind leprosy, which has plagued mankind throughout history. The study...
Type 2 diabetes is a condition in which the body does not produce enough insulin or the cells in the body do not use insulin properly. It is an illness which is known to disproportionately affect...
The Medici family rose to power in the 13 th century in Florence and Tuscany through banking and commerce and became one of the most powerful families of the Renaissance period. However, new research...
New research published in the journal Nature Genetics has revealed that the origins of tuberculosis (TB) did not emerge around 10,000 years ago in animals and then pass to humans, as currently...
