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This is Scientific American's 60-Second Science. I'm Karen Hopkin. This will just take a minute.

For years, scientists and physicians have been up in arms about the rise in antibiotic¹ resistance. Seems that many  bacteria, devious² buggers that they are, are able to share genetic⁵ information—including, say, the instructions for destroying penicillin⁶. Well, if that’s not bad enough, scientists from the N.Y.U. School of Medicine have found that some bacteria can use viruses to help them pass along the recipe for their favorite toxin⁷, results published in the journal Science.

Like humans, bacteria are also prone⁸ to infection by viruses. And most of these viruses—called bacteriophage, or phage for short—make their bacterial⁹ victims sick. Or even dead. But in the laboratory, the scientists discovered that Staphylococcus aureus, the bug³ that causes toxic¹⁰ shock syndrome¹¹ among other things, can actually co-opt phage, using them to shuttle the gene⁴ for toxic-shock toxin to another bacteria, in this case Listeria. That’s doubly nasty, because Listeria on its own causes food poisoning, so if it added toxic shock to its repertoire¹², well, that would be one seriously bad bug. Whether Staph aureus can pull off this stunt¹³ outside the lab’s not clear. But in this particular battle, ya gotta hope the viruses come out on top.

Thanks for the minute for Scientific American's 60-Second Science. I'm Karen Hopkin.