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Syphilis microbe’s family has plagued humans for millennia

Ancient DNA recovered from Brazilian remains shows that treponemal diseases originated some 10,000 years earlier than previously thought.
  1. Ewen Callaway
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Remains of people who lived on the eastern coast of South America nearly 2,000 years ago have yielded the oldest known evidence for the family of microorganisms that cause syphilis1.

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doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-024-00191-9

References

  1. Majander, K. et al. Nature https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-06965-x (2024).

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  2. Harper, K. N., Zuckerman, M. K., Harper, M. L., Kingston, J. D. & Armelagos, G. J. Am. J. Phys. Anthropol. 146, 99–133 (2011).

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  3. Majander, K. et al. Curr. Biol. 30, 3788–3803 (2020).

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