It's often difficult to completely eliminate a bacterial infection with antibiotics; part of the population usually manages to survive. We've known about this phenomenon for quite some time, dating back nearly to the discovery of penicillin. For more than 50 years, scientists have believed that the resistant bacteria were individuals that had stopped growing and dividing. Up to now, in fact, it hasn't been possible to track the growth of cells before and after their exposure to antibiotics, which makes any analysis of the phenomenon quite imprecise...
More...
More...