Given the massive amounts of antibiotics coursing through the
bodies of our livestock—not to mention its use and misuse by
humans—one would think soil would be teeming with the drugs. But
this isn’t the case, and now scientists may know why: They’re
being devoured by bacteria. Harvard researchers stumbled upon
this finding while trying to find microbes that could convert
agricultural waste into biofuels. The scientists wanted to make
sure they had a good control—a group of bacteria that didn’t
grow at all—so they bathed some of the bacteria in antibiotics.
But there was a problem: The bacteria didn’t just survive in the
antibiotics, they consumed them. The researchers then gathered
soil from 11 sites with varying degrees of exposure to human-
made antibiotics (from manure-filled cornfields to an immaculate
forest) and found that every site contained bacteria, including
relatives of Shigella and the notorious E. coli that could
survive solely on antibiotics. And these weren’t just piddling
doses—the bacteria co