Researchers at the Francis Crick Institute and UCL have analyzed ancient DNA from Borrelia recurrentis, a type of bacteria that causes relapsing fever, pinpointing when it evolved to spread through ...

A new preprint on bioRxiv reexamined the disease profile of Napoleon’s retreating army in 1812. Researchers extracted ancient DNA from teeth of thirteen soldiers recovered from a Vilnius mass grave ...

Researchers at the University of Bradford have taken part in analysis which has found how ancient DNA for a type of bacteria which causes a fever has evolved over thousands of years. Borrelia ...

Ancient genomes reveal that a bacterial fever jumped from human-borne ticks to lice around the time wool textiles became common. A deadly infection that is spread by body lice might have emerged ...

Before joining Discover Magazine, Paul Smaglik spent over 20 years as a science journalist, specializing in U.S. life science policy and global scientific career issues. He began his career in ...

A study analyzes the genomic blueprint of the louse-borne relapsing fever pathogen Borrelia recurrentis isolated from a 15th-century human skeleton in Scandinavia. Transmitted by body lice, B.

Throughout history, infectious diseases have profoundly affected human populations, yet key questions about their origins and evolutionary patterns remain unanswered. Borrelia recurrentis (B.