Darn, I knew I shouldn’t have eaten that baby a few years ago:

A British researcher, using a study of cannibals, warns that mad cow disease may eventually kill lot more humans than is known now. The findings, published Friday in the British medical journal The Lancet, were drawn from a study of cannibals in New Guinea who had enjoyed long lives until they fell victim to a brain-wasting disease. The research by the University College in London studied kuru, a disease that had taken a heavy toll of the cannibals.

Kuru and vCJD, the human version of mad cow disease, are both caused by “prions,” or abnormally folded proteins found in human (or cow) flesh. People actually have several genes that protect against prion diseases, and a few months ago, the journal Science argued that the presence of those genes was a clue as to our distant ancestors’ favorite food: each other. We wouldn’t have those genes, it said, unless there was a foodborne disease that made them necessary — and the British beef industry wasn’t exactly around then.