Antibiotics Feed These Bacteria, Instead of Killing Them

It sounds like science fiction, but it’s not. A paper published today in the journal Science explains that some bacteria thrive on a diet of antibiotics, instead of dying as previous science predicts they should.

The story is getting a lot of play in national media. The research comes from a team led by George Church, professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School. They stumbled on their finding as they tried to use the antibiotics to kill off bacteria in soil, as part of an effort to develop biofuels from agricultural waste.

Read the AP account, via the New York Times, here, or listen to an audio clip from NPR here.