Anthrax is an acute disease in humans and Animals that is caused by the bacterium Bacillus anthracis and is highly lethal in some forms. Anthrax is one of only a few bacteria that can form long lived spores. When the bacteria's life cycle is threatened by factors such as lack of food caused by their host dying or by a change of temperature, the bacteria turn themselves into more or less dormant spores to wait for another host to continue their life cycle. ...

Anthrax is an acute disease in humans and Animals that is caused by the bacterium Bacillus anthracis and is highly lethal in some forms. Anthrax is one of only a few bacteria that can form long lived spores. When the bacteria's life cycle is threatened by factors such as lack of food caused by their host dying or by a change of temperature, the bacteria turn themselves into more or less dormant spores to wait for another host to continue their life cycle.

On breathing, ingesting or getting anthrax spores in a cut in the skin, a new host allows these spores to reactivate themselves and multiply in their new host very rapidly. Anthrax most commonly occurs in wild and domestic grass eating mammals (ruminants) who ingest or breathe in the spores while eating grass. Anthrax can also be caught by humans when they are exposed to dead infected pigs, eat tissue from infected animals, or are exposed to a high density of anthrax spores from an animal's fur, hide, or wool. Anthrax spores can be grown outside the body and used as a biological weapon. Anthrax cannot spread directly from human to human; but anthrax spores can be transported by human clothing, shoes etc. and if a person dies of anthrax their body can be a very dangerous source of anthrax spores.