Louis L'Hôte

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Medieval parchment yields ancient sheeppox virus genomes

Publishing ancient DNA research on livestock pathogens

Sheeppox has been infecting flocks for at least 3,700 years. Researchers have now pulled its DNA out of an unlikely archive: the animal skins that medieval scribes scraped, soaked and bound into books, including the 1,000-year-old York Gospels.

Updated 2 hours ago

Notable Quotes

"People around the world are still fighting against this pathogen -- there is currently an outbreak of sheeppox in Greece, causing much economic damage."

from Medieval parchment yields ancient sheeppox virus genomes · Updated 2 hours ago

"We find that unlike the smallpox virus, the sheeppox virus genome was very stable over the last few millennia."

from Medieval parchment yields ancient sheeppox virus genomes · Updated 2 hours ago