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The plague that wiped out over a third of Europe's population in the 14th century came from a bacteria known as Yersinia pestis. Now we've sequenced its genome...and it's weirdly, almost worryingly identical to its modern descendants. More »
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If you're worried about catching a super-virus, you can always be extra careful about washing your hands. But sometimes that's not enough. Sometimes you just need to get all those sick people away from you. This idea has fueled many successful — and unsuccessful — quarantines over the years. Here are the strangest, sickest, and silliest things that have been done in the name of quaratines. More »
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What if a deadly virus ripped through the world, shattering cities and killing millions, but you had the chance to view the carnage from sealed government labs and well-appointed boardrooms? That's the promise of Contagion, a fascinating plague procedural from Steven Soderbergh, where more tension radiates from powerpoint presentations about viral amplification than it does from a shot of mass graves. More »
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We've suspected it for awhile now, and now it's confirmed that the bacterium Yersinia pestis was responsible for the devastating plague that wiped out a third of Europe 650 years ago. But this ultimate killer started as something far different. More »
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The spread of the Black Death — a devastating pandemic that ravaged European populations between 1348 and 1350 — has long been attributed to the black rat and the fleas it carried from port to port, while hitching a ride on merchant ships. More »
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Though it's often said that serial killers and diseases strike at random, a new study shows that they both kill victims in a predictable pattern. That's why the tools criminologists use to track serial killers can also pinpoint the location where an epidemic started. More »
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The US Department of Agriculture warns that this summer could bring massive outbreaks of grasshoppers and Mormon crickets. More »
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Milla Jovovich is back in black, as Resident Evil's T-Virus-slaying Alice. The first pictures from Resident Evil: Afterlife are filled with contaminated bodies, guns, some old friends and Alice's thigh holsters. Bring it on, lady. More »
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We talked infectious diseases with The Crazies director Breck Eisner. And learned the great pains he took to make sure George Romero's film was updated correctly. Rule number one: These people aren't zombies, they're alive — and full of rage! More »
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Can any short video live up to Ataque de Panico? We think this melodramatic zombie short from Matt Simpson is in the running. It's called Plague. More »
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The trailer for Cabin Fever's sequel is finally out, which means we'll all know what happened with the fancy bottled water factory that was shipping out the flesh eating disease to the rest of the world. More »
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The oldest remains of a person accused of being a vampire have been found outside Venice, buried in a mass grave of plague victims. More »
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This tableau of the rotting bodies of plague victims was created by an obscure waxwork artist over 300 years ago, in an effort to create anatomically accurate models for medical researchers. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5158472&view=rss&microfeed=true Officials at a Denver hospital admitted over the weekend that they treated a case of deadly Marburg hemorrhagic fever last year. Marburg is related to the Ebola virus, made infamous in bestselling book The Hot Zone, and kills 80 percent of those who contract it within days after exposure. The man who was treated in Denver caught it while visiting a python cave in Uganda, and made a full recovery. Another tourist who visited the same cave died after returning home, and the cave has since been closed. More »
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The next time a viral infection starts spreading zombie-like madness across England (or wherever), we might put a halt to the plague before the sequel ever gets made. Our secret weapon will be a designer drug created by plugging some numbers into a mathematical formula. Rice University researchers have developed just such a formula, and it can show us exactly how to force a virus to mutate uncontrollably, to the point that the virus mutates itself out of existence. More »
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Here's the thing with Quarantine, the new zombie outbreak flick that hit theaters this weekend: It's YAZPM. You know: Yet Another Zombie Plague Movie. How does this YAZPM distinguish itself from its predecessors in the genre? Not by much. The outbreak is contained to a creepy apartment building, which I hope will spawn a round of "sick building" jokes. And there's a journalist filming the whole thing, sort of like that video game where you have to take pictures of zombies in a mall while you kill them. But in the end, Quarantine just doesn't satisfy: It feels derivative, and not just because it's a remake of Spanish film REC. So instead of seeing Quarantine, I recommend you see a better, more original YAZPM. Here are some ideas for where to start. More »
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Before George Romero become the zombie master, he made a little film about germ warfare and mayhem called The Crazies. It's about a secret government weapon called Trixie, and now it's about to get a reboot. More »
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Now we're thoroughly satisfied that the once-defunct movie adaptation of Jose Saramago's Blindness deserves your attention (after some much needed adjustments). Here are a few clips of the masses unraveling while their city is swept with a blindness epidemic. The style is intended to evoke the "milky white" film that blocks the victims' sight. Watch Julianne Moore lay down some heavy threats and Gael García Bernal go crazy as he claims himself King Of Ward 3. More »
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In its ongoing efforts to stamp out all things terror-related, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has just released a giant report on its plans to build a mega bio-defense lab where scientists will study the Earth's deadliest diseases for humans and animals. Basically, it will be a real-life version of that lab you saw in the recent A&E revamp of The Andromeda Strain. Sounds awesome, right? The problem is that disease leaks from the lab are not entirely unlikely, according to the report. More »
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It could be the beginning of a new global pandemic. Leptospirosis is a bacterial disease spread from animals to humans through water contaminated by infected urine. In severe cases, it can lead to liver failure, kidney failure, meningitis and eventually death. While it's been contained historically through screening and antibiotics, medical researchers in Peru recently stumbled across a new species of Lepto so genetically mutated that current tests for the disease don't detect it. More »
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We fell in love with Doomsday's plague-quarantine horror, but sadly the rest of the world failed to fall with us. And maybe the failure of yet another movie about a deadly virus wrecking civilization means that people are finally sick of plagues? After I Am Legend, 28 Days/Weeks, and countless others, it's time for something else to take its turn crashing everything down. What do you think should be our new global disaster movie meme? More »
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This map shows the places in the world where the next deadly virus will probably begin its fatal sweep across the globe. Red areas are plague "hot spots," and green areas are regions where epidemics are least likely to break out. An international team of scientists came up with the map after years of exhaustive research into virus patterns. Researchers discovered that disease disasters have quadrupled over the past 50 years, and they have evidence showing which groups are most likely to spread a virulent disease. More »
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At last, a trailer is out for Doomsday, the non-zombie film starring a world-ravaging virus that results in Scotland being walled off. It looks like 28 Days Later meets 28 Weeks Later plus a serving of Mad Max on the side with a couple of dashes from the I Am Legend shaker. In other words, it starts out with a ton of promise and promptly devolves into something that leaves you feeling like you might throw up. Plus it begins with the Sparta-sounding "THIS. IS. OUR. CITY!" Check it out. 'Doomsday' Trailer Finally Online [Bloody Disgusting] More »
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The original concept art for I Am Legend was much bleaker and more post-apocalyptic than the movie's final look. Production designer David Lazan talked to us about why he and director Francis Lawrence opted for a more gorgeous back-to-nature look. Our interview, plus a concept art gallery, after the jump. More »
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