Treponema pallidum, responsible for syphilis. Credit: NIAID / CC BY 2.0 In the spring of 1495, a deadly disease swept through Europe, leaving victims with severe physical and mental damage. The ...

They found that early versions of the microbe, Treponema pallidum, that causes syphilis and related diseases were already diverse and widespread. Their analysis suggests that syphilis emerged in ...

One subspecies, T. pallidum, causes modern syphilis. Bos compared the genetic differences of older treponemal subspecies with modern syphilis samples. That data allowed the team to extrapolate the ...