Can Oil-Eating Bacteria Help Clean Up the Gulf Oil Spill?

sciencehabit writes "At this point it's unclear how much of an environmental threat oil spreading from the BP spill will cause, but the federal government is mobilizing thousands of workers to prepare for the worst. They have a potential ally: microbes that have evolved an ability to break down oil that seeps from the ocean bottom. It gets devoured by a variety of bacteria, which eat it by chemically transforming its compounds into useful cellular constituents." Wired has some pictures of the spill from orbiting satellites.

Comments

Re:Why so serious?

[Luke has no name]

This is a conspiracy to defile the legitimacy of finding and harvesting domestic petroleum by the Obama administration. After all, the only people hurt by the intentional sabotage of the rig is a British company and New Orleans, which we all know the government doesn't give a damn about.