Scientists at Harvard and Technion–Israel Institute of Technology created a giant rectangle petri dish to study how well bacteria can adapt when exposed to antibiotics. In a both exciting and terrifying result, they found bacteria can evolve rather quickly to fight against the antibiotics.

The scientists painted bands of antibiotics along the rectangle that increased in potency as they reached the middle of the petri dish. So at the edges, the antibiotics were weakest and they slowly got stronger. However, the bacteria were introduced at the edges as well and became better able to fight off the antibiotics as they spread and multiplied to the center. At first, the bacteria were mostly killed off by the antibiotics, but then a small group of bacteria who had the mutation that made them antibiotic resistant became the dominant group and took over.

While this is a concerning finding, understanding how this process works is crucial for developing medical technology to fight illnesses.