New findings are casting doubt on a previous study that claimed oil-eating microbes have drastically reduced the amount of oil from the BP well blowout in the Gulf of Mexico. Last month, researchers at California’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory said the microbes appear to have multiplied in number and increased their metabolic capacity to eat up much of the oil that spilled into the Gulf. But a new study published in the journal Science says that the microbes appear to have eaten up the natural gas that spilled from the wellhead, not the oil.