"Unraveling the Origins of Syphilis: Insights from 2000-Year-Old Brazilian Skeletons"
A new study published in the journal Nature used paleopathology techniques on 2,000-year-old bones unearthed in Brazil to recover the earliest known genomic evidence of Treponema pallidum, the bacterium that causes syphilis, suggesting that the disease may have originated in the Americas and was present long before the first trans-Atlantic contacts. The findings challenge the long-standing theory that syphilis emerged in Europe after Columbus' expeditions, indicating a more complex and ancient history of the disease's evolution and global distribution.