Mummy Tales
…oh if mummies could talk…
I suppose, in a way, thanks to DNA sequencing they can!
Egyptian Mummies Yield Earliest Evidence of Malaria
Rossella Lorenzi, Discovery News
Plagued by Disease
Two Egyptian mummies who died more than 3,500 years ago have provided clear evidence for the earliest known cases of malaria, according to a study presented this week in Naples at an international conference on ancient DNA.
Pathologist Andreas Nerlich and colleagues at the Academic Teaching Hospital München-Bogenhausen in Munich, Germany, studied 91 bone tissue samples from ancient Egyptian mummies and skeletons dating from 3500 to 500 B.C.
Using special techniques from molecular biology, such as DNA amplification and gene sequencing, the researchers identified ancient DNA for the malaria parasite… (read the rest at discovery.com)
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