From the "Nothing Bad Can Happen" files

[Jangler]

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/13/science/13plague.html

After the Black Death reached London in 1348, about 2,400 people were buried in East Smithfield, near the Tower of London, in a cemetery that had been prepared for the plague’s arrival. From the teeth of four of those victims, researchers have now reconstructed the full DNA of a microbe that within five years felled one-third to one-half of the population of Western Europe.

The bacterium that causes plague, Yersinia pestis, is still highly virulent today but has different symptoms, leading some historians to doubt that it was the agent of the Black Death.

Those doubts were laid to rest last year by detection of the bacterium’s DNA in plague victims from mass graves across Europe. With the full genome now in hand, the researchers hope to recreate the microbe itself so as to understand what made the Black Death outbreak so deadly.

This is the first time the genome of an ancient pathogen has been reconstructed, opening the way to tracking other ancient epidemics and how their microbes adapted to human hosts.

The researchers hope eventually to modify a living plague bacterium so that its genome is identical to that of the agent of the Black Death. Such a microbe could be handled only in special secure facilities. But even if it did infect a person, the bacterium would be susceptible to antibiotics, like its living descendants, said Hendrik Poinar of McMaster University, a team member.

[Ivan The Awesome]

Let's play god, I mean what can we fug up?

[Mr. Scot]

I think I've seen a movie plot or two that started this way :(

[Future of the Funchise]

I can see this thread being in the tinderbox and someone coming up with a conspiracy about it saying that they are going to inject it into fried chicken to try to kill off black america.

[Ivan The Awesome]

^ Kanye West would believe this.

[PanthaSan]

It will be fully controlled...............yeah, right.

Hopefully the scientists read this first.

[Guest]

Scrum is behind this, I'm certain of it.

[Epistaxis]

It aint the old poo I'm worried about, it is the poo that made it until now, and we still keep throwing abx at everything.

Bacteria evolve...really damn fast.

Some super scary viruses floatin' around too, not to mention some fungal stuff that will knock your dick off.

So yeah, old...not so scary.

New and improved?

very scary.

[The Saltman]

It aint the old poo I'm worried about, it is the poo that made it until now, and we still keep throwing abx at everything.

Bacteria evolve...really damn fast.

Some super scary viruses floatin' around too, not to mention some fungal stuff that will knock your dick off.

So yeah, old...not so scary.

New and improved?

very scary.

huh?

[Epistaxis]

What do you need explained?

[The Saltman]

im just trying to be a dick.

I failed.

[Jangler]

huh?

crazy scientists = bad

[mmmbeans]

very cool.