Well personally I love history and I'm a microbiologist by profession, so more at the intersection of those two things would suit me!
And while it's a bit morbid, I guess the epidemiologist part of me (which is quite small) is interested in the Old World/New World disease exchange. We think of some of the Old World diseases as having developed there because of higher population densities etc (although the bubble effects/bottleneck you spoke about will undoubtedly have had a big impact too). Did the lower population densities in modern day US/Canada affect which of the Old World diseases were "successful"?
Well personally I love history and I'm a microbiologist by profession, so more at the intersection of those two things would suit me!
And while it's a bit morbid, I guess the epidemiologist part of me (which is quite small) is interested in the Old World/New World disease exchange. We think of some of the Old World diseases as having developed there because of higher population densities etc (although the bubble effects/bottleneck you spoke about will undoubtedly have had a big impact too). Did the lower population densities in modern day US/Canada affect which of the Old World diseases were "successful"?
Nice post! Tiny thing - I think you meant typhoid not typhus? Typhus is spread by insects, not faeces?
Good catch, thank you! And thanks for reading! Let me know if there are topics you’d like to hear about.