A type of bacteria that eats natural gases may provide a small defence against leaks such as BP’s Gulf of Mexico oil spill in 2010 and curb global warming, a scientific report said on Monday. The study identified a strain of microbe able to grow on both methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, and propane. Both are found in unrefined natural gas and scientists had previously thought that bacteria could only grow on one or the other. In consuming both methane and propane the bacteria prevent the gases reaching the atmosphere, Britain’s University of East Anglia said of the report written by two of its scientists in the journal Nature. That means the microbes “could help mitigate the effects of the release of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere from both natural gas seeps in the environment and those arising from man-made activity such as fracking […]