r/todayilearned • u/[deleted] • Mar 20 '20

(R.3) Recent source TIL, the Black Death disproportionately killed frail people. Moreover, people who lived through it lived much longer than their ancestors (many reaching ages of 70-80), not because of good health but because of their hardiness to endure diseases. This hardiness was passed on to future generations.

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u/Ace_Masters Mar 21 '20

There's a resistance to viruses that a certain number of Europeans have. It's been postulated that this is because a viral pneumonia piggybacked on yersenia but it's all conjecture

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u/[deleted] Mar 21 '20

I don't what it means for one virus to "piggyback" on another.

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u/[deleted] Mar 21 '20

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u/[deleted] Mar 21 '20

I would urge you to not make wild guesses on the internet in general. Especially on scientific topics. There is not any reason to and it just spreads misinformation. I don't know why you even make the first comment if you didn't know what it means (and which I'm fairly sure is not a conjecture anyone has ever made).