Was the fall of Rome a biological phenomenon?

Bill Gates is worried. The tech entrepreneur and philanthropist has been using his megaphone to warn us of the catastrophic risk posed by infectious diseases. In the Western world, where mortality from lethal germs has mostly receded into the background, the burden of infectious disease can seem like someone else's problem. But the struggle between humanity and infectious disease is never someone else's problem - certainly not in our globally interconnected society. And while modern medicine has the upper hand on many old microbial enemies, we should beware the sinister ability of pathogen evolution to thwart our cleverest weapons.

Gates is right. The