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It has been demonstrated that a species of penicillium produces in culture a very powerful antibacterial substance which affects different bacteria in different degrees. Generally speaking it may be said that the least sensitive bacteria are the Gram-negative bacilli, and the most susceptible are the pyogenic cocci ... In addition to its possible use in the treatment of bacterial infections penicillin is certainly useful ... for its power of inhibiting unwanted microbes in bacterial cultures so that penicillin insensitive bacteria can readily be isolated. Alexander Fleming
Millions were in germ war tests: much of Britain was exposed to bacteria sprayed in secret trials. Guardian online article Antony Barnett 21st October 2002
Bacteria are the most successful life-forms on the planet. Dara O’Briain’s Science Club s2e5, BBC 2013
Stromatolites – housing projects built by colonies of bacteria. Horizon: Message in the Rocks, BBC 1979
Antibacterial cleaners. Is it really possible that any of these alarming bugs could be in our homes? Or is this cleaner just trying to scare us into buying it? ... Scientifically antibacterial sprays are so well regulated they will do what they say on the bottle ... These products will go into Professor Regan’s trolley. Horizon: Professor Regan’s Supermarket Secrets, BBC 2008
There is an invisible world. The microscopic world of bacteria. Some of these bacteria are going rogue. Becoming super-bugs we can’t control. Antibiotics are one of the miracles of modern medicine. And scientists now worry that super-bugs are emerging which are becoming totally resistant to these drugs. Horizon: Defeating the Superbugs, BBC 2012
Over the last decade scientists have witnessed outbreaks around the world where antibiotics we’ve relied on in the past have stopped working. These outbreaks have been caused by new types of bacteria. ibid.
A super-bug can soon become a citizen of the world. ibid.
We are beginning to see this level of resistance all over the world. ibid.
More than three-quarters of the antibiotics we regularly use in hospitals today were taken from microbes in the soil. ibid.
Phage medicines are still in the early stages. ibid.
South of Moscow north of Turkey scientists in the Republic of Georgia may hold our last defence against the super-bugs, against the advance of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. From this sewage come a medicine. A medicine made from a virus. A virus that cures. Horizon: Phage – The Virus That Cures, BBC 1997
The more antibiotics we use the more resistant bacteria becomes. ibid.
No fundamentally new antibiotic has been discovered for more than thirty years. ibid.
Phage medicine had its hey-day in the 1980s; it was manufactured in factories across the Soviet Union. ibid.
By 1941 Phage was still thought too unreliable to be useful by researchers in the West. ibid.
The beauty of Phage as a medicine is that they are alive so they can change just as bacteria do. ibid.
This could be a key new drug for the West. ibid.
Bacteria flourish in other extreme environments too, miles underground and under crushing pressures on the ocean floor. Horizon: Curing Alzheimer’s, BBC 2016
Viruses and bacteria don’t stay the same: they evolve too. Dr Alice Roberts, Horizon: Are We Still Evolving? BBC 2011
So if we didn’t have the cyanobacteria we wouldn’t be around. We owe our heritage to the scum of the Earth. Robert Roy Britt, live science online
All of us came from the same place. We have so many things in common with bacteria there is just no doubt about it. Ken Nealson, geobiologist
These bacteria stained red feed off hydrogen gas created when water reacts with volcanic rock. Universe: Life
Because of cyanobacteria life was able to diversify and become more complex very rapidly. The Universe s1e6: Spaceship Earth, History 2007
Cyanobacteria were depleting them further. In combination with weathering they sucked the carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and temperatures plummeted. Tony Robinson, Catastrophe II: Snowball Earth, Channel 4 2008
Even the most primitive form of life – bacteria – need water for their survival. And there are no exceptions. And this seemingly fundamental link between water and life is driving the search for life out there in the solar system. Brian Cox, Wonders of the Solar System: Aliens, BBC 2010
The cyanobacteria changed the world turning it green. Brian Cox, Wonders of Life V: Home, BBC 2013
We know that there are micro-organisms on Earth that have evolved to have the ability to withstand intense levels of radiation. There are bacteria that grow on the cooling rods of nuclear reactors. Richard Hoover, NASA
I’ve only got one lead: the infection resembles one developed by Earth during their bacterial warfare experiments in the 1990s. Star Trek s2e23: The Omega Glory, McCoy
For the first half of geological time our ancestors were bacteria. Most creatures still are bacteria, and each one of our trillions of cells is a colony of bacteria. Richard Dawkins
The Lenski experiments are distressing to creationists, and for a very good reason. They are a beautiful demonstration of evolution in action ... E. coli is a common bacterium ... These twelve flasks founded twelve lines of evolution that we destined to be kept separate from one another for two decades and counting ... Each tribe had a new flask every day ... This means about 7,000 ‘flask generations’ and 45,000 bacterial generations ... different tribes developed different sets of mutation. Richard Dawkins, The Greatest Show on Earth pp117-121
The purple cloud ... bacteria absorb the sunlight’s energy to photosynthesise. Oceans IV: Atlantic Ocean, BBC 2008
Pasteur had discovered bacteria, a previously unknown microscopic life-form. It was bacteria that was turning beer bad. How Beer Saved the World, Discovery 2011
In the future this bacteria-based bio-technology could create clean energy and clean fuel. It’s a revolutionary science that Greens could be a part of from the outset. What the Green Movement Got Wrong, Channel 4 2010
In 2008 [Professor Penelope] Boston found bacteria trapped in inclusions – tiny air pockets that formed when the crystals were growing. She reanimated the bacteria and brought them back to life. Return to the Giant Crystal Cave, National Geographic 2010
What you see is that the most outstanding feature of life’s history is a constant domination by bacteria. Stephen Jay Gould
You could also ask who’s in charge. Lots of people think, well, we’re humans; we’re the most intelligent and accomplished species; we’re in charge. Bacteria may have a different outlook: more bacteria live and work in one linear centimeter of your lower colon than all the humans who have ever lived. That’s what’s going on in your digestive tract right now. Are we in charge, or are we simply hosts for bacteria? It all depends on your outlook. Neil deGrasse Tyson, Space Chronicles: Facing the Ultimate Frontier
Scientists are hunting for a life-form that could help defeat one of humanity’s biggest killers ... Cyanobacteria because it’s known to have special biological properties. Brave New World with Stephen Hawking: Biology, Mark Evans in Panama, Channel 4 2011
It’s the properties in this marine snot that Kevin and his colleagues are studying. ibid.
What would it be like if we could harness these extraordinary natural processes and shape them to our own purpose? ... It’s called Synthetic Biology. ibid. Professor Richard Dawkins