This is

60 second science. I'm Karen Hopkins. I'm Karen Hopkins. This will just take a minute.

Summer's here and with it come picnics, barbecues, and of course,

Salmonella.

The germ is notorious for contaminating a variety of favorite warm weather foods,

but the bacteria's palate is more limited than our own.

Once Salmonella makes its way into your system, it relies on a single unusual nutrient to survive.

That's according to a study in the journal, Ploss Pathogens.

Most people tough it out when they get food poisoning from Salmonella.

That's because treatment with antibiotics

would eliminate the infection but also wipe out the gut bacteria that promote good health.

To figure out how to target Salmonella specifically, researchers screened for

genes vital for the microbe survival during the active phase of infection

and they identified a cluster of five genes that work together to allow the bacteria to

digest a molecule called fructose asparagine. No other organisms are known to use this chemical

for fuel, so starving salmonella of it could be a new strategy for fighting this food-borne

bug while leaving desirable intestinal inhabitants unharmed.

Next, the researchers plan to see which foods contain large amounts of Salmonella's go-to snack.

But please, don't send unsolicited samples of Aunt Agnes' egg salad. Thanks for the minute.

For Scientific Americans 60 Second Science, I'm Karen Hopkins.