Reports of the infection—including one death this month—recently shook up social media. But, unlike COVID-19, plague is a disease that countries have more or less got under control.

In the era of Big Data, research projects that focus on phenomena that unfold across decades have distinct benefits—and some drawbacks.

UCLA ecologist Dan Blumstein tracks a fluctuating population of the alpine rodents in Colorado that has been studied for more than 40 years.