Kuru, nicknamed "laughing disease" or "laughing death", was much more common among the Fore people of Papua New Guinea back ...

But sometimes, prions can also be transmitted from one individual to another (infamously, the prion disease kuru was spread through cannibalism), or even between two different species of animal.

The Papua New Guinea tribe developed strong genetic resistance after a major epidemic of the CJD-like disease, kuru, spread mostly by cannibalism. Medical Research Council experts assessed more ...