Antibiotics are meant to kill bacteria, so it might be
disheartening to learn that some bacteria can literally eat
antibiotics for breakfast. In fact, some species can thrive
quite happily on nothing but antibiotics, even at high
concentrations. The rise of drug-resistant bacteria poses a
significant threat to public health and many dangerous bugs seem
to be developing resistance at an alarming rate. The headline-
grabbing MRSA may be getting piggybacks from livestock to
humans, while several strains of tuberculosis are virtually
untreatable by standard drugs. But a startling new study reveals
just how widespread antibiotic resistance really is. Gautam
Dantas from Harvard Medical School managed to culture
antibiotic-eating bacteria from every one of 11 soil samples,
taken from farmland and urban areas across the US. All eleven
were positively loaded with a diverse group of bacteria that
were extremely resistant to a wide range of antibiotics at high
concentrations. In their natural environment, these soil bact