Not Exactly Pocket Science is a set of shorter write-ups on new stories with links to more detailed takes, where available. It is meant to complement the usual fare of detailed pieces that are typical for this blog.
Plague-running mice create epidemics The bacterium behind bubonic plague - Yersinia pestis
– has a notorious track record for massacring humans, creating at least three major pandemics including the Black Death
of the 14th century. But it’s mainly a disease of rodents and it regularly infects the black-tailed prairie dogs
of North America. It’s an enigmatic killer. It will remain relatively silent for years before suddenly exploding into an epidemic that kills nearly all the prairie dogs in infected colonies within a few weeks. Now Daniel Sakeld
from Stanford University has found the culprit behind these lurk-and-kill cycles – the tiny grasshopper mouse
. Prairie dog colonies, and their diseases, are generally ...
