Bacteria Have Eaten Giant Gulf Oil Plume, New Study Says
Microbes and an Oil Microdroplet Microbes are degrading oil from the Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico, according to a new study. This image shows bacteria and an oil droplet, magnified 100x. Science/AAASThe massive plume scientists announced last week might already be gone Remember how we told you last week about the problem of variables when studying the Gulf oil spill? Here's another one: according to a new study, a heretofore unseen species of bacteria is eating the oil, and eating it efficiently. Thanks to these cold-loving, oil-munching bugs, the huge oil plume we learned about last week is probably gone, according to Terry Hazen, a microbial ecologist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and principal investigator at the Energy Biosciences Institute. "In the last three weeks, we haven't been able to detect the deepwater plume anywhere we've gone," he said in an interview. "It appears to have been completely biodegraded...