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Germs thrive on antibiotics in soil

Categories: Diet & Weight Loss

Antibiotics are "anti-"biotic, right? They destroy bacteria. Only when researchers were recently were fiddling around in a lab trying to find ways to create biofuel out of agricultural waste, they made a disturbing discovery. Several bacteria present in common soil not only resisted antibiotics, they gobbled them up and asked for more.

When placed in a petri dish with only antibiotics for sustenance, the bacteria grew slightly more slowly than they would in nature, but still thrived for a very long time. Not only that, they withstood massive amounts of antibiotics, 50 to 100 times the human dose.

Researchers are working to discover exactly how these bacteria fake out the antibiotics and say that, right now, bacteria found in soil is of little harm to humans. But because relatives of the dangerous E. coli virus live in the dirt, they'd like to have a plan of action in case one of those little bugs mutates and gets out of hand.

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