>>5950603
>>5950722
E.coli, the bacteria in that petri dish, reproduce around every 20 minutes under ideal conditions (which in that experiment they were in ideal conditions, at least as far as food and oxygen go, ignoring the sea of antibiotics they are swimming in). that is 3 generations an hour, or 72 generations a day. in 11 days, that is 792 generations. Comparatively, humans reach sexual maturity in ~15 years. assuming every generation reproduces as soon as they reach sexual maturity, it would take 11,880 years to reach 792 human generations. those bacteria had more generations 11 days than all of humanity has since recorded history. going back to the birth of Christ, that is only 135 generations away from the present day, which only 17% of the generations those bacteria had in just 11 days.
Also, the method of reproduction used by E. coli and most other single-celled organisms is more faulty than the genetic reproduction used by humans and all other multi-cellular organisms, resulting in more mutation between generations for single-celled organisms. so not only do they reproduce ridiculously faster, but they mutate more readily as well. so yes, the bacteria developing such a strong resistance to an antibiotic in just 11 days is not beyond question. Bear in mind however, this is a controlled experiment, where they are growing under ideal conditions, with no competition from other species of bacteria, not being attacked by any immune response from growing inside of an organism, and being exposed solely to one specific type of antibiotic. The mutations they developed to resist the antibiotic may have one or several drawbacks which render them susceptible to other drugs, from attack by other bacteria or a host's immune system, or a higher metabolic requirement that reduces their survival in less-than-ideal conditions.
