A different kind of germ warfare
Scientists expected to find that the Yanomami microbescarried some antibiotic-resistant genes. That would not be surprising to them.
In fact, many bacteria found insoil produce natural antibiotics, which help the bacteriasurvive in competitive environments. Some say it is allpart of an ongoing bacterial battle.
But the researchers also found many genes inmicrobes that disarm man-made antibiotics that noknown microbes produce.
This came as a big surprise to the researchers.
One of the researchers is a man named Gautam Dantas. Mr. Dantas is from the Washington University School of Medicine. This was a surprise, he said,because it shows the bacteria have the ability to adapt to many things,possibly even things researchers did not think they have been exposed to