Thanks, commercial farmers, for creating these super microbes.

It's well known how bacteria exposed to antibiotics for long periods will find ways to resist the drugs--by quickly pumping them out of their cells, for instance, or modifying the compounds so they're no longer toxic.

But to Topp's knowledge, this is the first report of a soil microorganism that degrades an antibiotic both to protect itself and get nutrition.

On the other hand, this means that wastewater can be treated for antibiotics now. All the drugs people are taking, the gels full of hormones that people wash off their hands and down their drains - all that's been accumulating in our water supply because the current system wasn't designed to treat for these chemicals. And we've been drinking it, bathing in it, breathing it in. So, a microorganism that can remediate this from our water would be great. You know, as long as it didn't also develop a taste for people.