Drug-Resistant Bacteria Found in 4-Million-Year-Old Cave [View all]
Drug-Resistant Bacteria Found in 4-Million-Year-Old Cave
Microbes from pristine areas can battle modern medicine, study says.
Dave Mosher
for National Geographic News
Published April 11, 2012
Deep in the bowels of a pristine New Mexico cave, microbiologists have discovered nearly a hundred types of bacteria that can fight off modern antibiotic drugs.
The bacteria coat the walls of the Lechuguilla cave system on rock faces some 1,600 feet (487 meters) below Earth's surface. Until recently, the microscopic life-forms had encountered neither humans nor modern antibiotics.
That's because a thick dome of rock isolated the cave between four and seven million years ago. Any water that trickles through takes roughly ten thousand years to reach the cave's depths—which means the subterranean life has existed entirely in the absence of modern medicine.
While not infectious to humans, the cave bacteria can resist multiple classes of antibiotics, including new synthetic drugs. The discovery serves as an intriguing lead in the quest to understand how drug-resistant diseases emerge.
More:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/04/120411-drug-resistance-bacteria-caves-diseases-human-health-science/
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