was probably not Bubonic plague on the subway system after all, but rather that the approaches used by the research team are limited in their taxonomic resolution, and that likely a harmless close relative of Y. pestis was observed:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“What the researchers probably found, [a spokesman for the university where the study originated] said, was bacteria from an unknown species or from organisms that happened to share some gene sequences with the plague bacterium…”.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>A