Scientists expected to find that the Yanomami microbes carried some antibiotic-resistant genes. That would not be surprising to them. In fact, many bacteria found in soil produce natural antibiotics, which help the bacteria survive in competitive environments. Some say it is al lpart of an ongoing bacterial battle.
But the researchers also found many genes in microbes that disarm man-made antibiotics that no known 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.