Mountain Madness

The best-known example of that is the Fore people of Papua New Guinea, who from the 19th century to the late 1950's held ''mortuary feasts'' on deceased relatives.

From the 1920's to the 60's, an epidemic of kuru, a prion disease, killed more than 200 Fore a year, especially women, who ate brains while men ate muscle. A study of 30 elderly Fore women who survived the era showed that 23 had the prion-protection gene, which was far less common among Fore born later, suggesting that it had protected them