Avery got a result: stripped of their DNA the power of the lethal bacteria to transform other cells simply vanished. (Cell & DNA & Genetics & Bacteria) Dr Adam Rutherford, The Chemistry of Life: The Cell, BBC 2009
For the first billion years or so life on Earth consisted entirely of simple single cells like bacteria and archaea. Then about two billion years ago more complex cells appeared. Dr Adam Rutherford, The Gene Code: The Book of Life, BBC 2011
We can see about two hundred genes scattered around my chromosomes that ... originally came from archaea ... We found short stretches of DNA that are uncannily similar to bacteria. ibid.
A type of infection that is becoming impossible to treat. A type of infection that has triggered deadly outbreaks, even at one of our most prestigious hospitals. It is a crisis that is spreading alarmingly fast. Hunting the Nightmare Bacteria, PBS 2015
Insects ... moulds, bacteria – they are key agents of decay. After Life: The Strange Science of Decay, BBC 2011
Bacteria are the most common agents of decay on the planet. And on dead animals they are the first to attack. ibid.
The bacteria start to coordinate their actions, working together to benefit the colony. ibid.
We fight a daily battle to keep this kind of decay out of our kitchens. ibid.
A new word has entered the lexicon – antibacterial. Jacques Peretti, The Men Who Made Us Spend II, BBC 2014
When antibiotics became industrially produced following World War II, our quality of life and our longevity improved enormously. No-one thought bacteria were going to become resistant. Bonnie Bassler
We have I think a horrible epidemic. Under Our Skin: The Untold Story of Lyme Disease, Youtube 2008
Pain. Pain. Pain. Relentless pain. ibid. sufferer
There is evidence that Lyme disease has been around for a long time but here in the United States it was the early 1970s when a Connecticut mum looked around her neighbourhood and noticed that something was not quite right. ibid.
Lyme disease is caused by bacteria … The most common form of transmission is through the bite of several species of tick. ibid.
The actual [US] number may be over 200,000 making Lyme more prevalent than AIDS. ibid.
They said I needed to see a psychiatrist. ibid. sufferer, typical medical reaction
This is the height of the season for baseball, summer vacations and Lyme disease. The disease is now being reported in almost every state and it’s reached epidemic levels in some parts of the north-east. ibid. news 1989
For more than seventy years we’ve waged war against bacterial infections using antibiotics. But it’s a war we’re now losing. Drug-resistant superbugs are spreading. Michael Mosley vs The Superbugs, BBC 2017
Threaten to send modern medicine back to the dark ages. ibid.
The by-product of war between microbes. ibid.
Our guts and intestines are home to at least a thousand species of bacteria. ibid.
And beneath the highly toxic waters of a Californian lake a strange bacteria is thriving against all odds leading some to believe it could be from another planet … The mysterious microbes of Mono Lake. Secrets of the Underground s1e5, Channel 5 2017
Bacteria may have been the first living lights. Attenborough’s Life that Glows, BBC 2017
Think of the Earth as a living organism that is being attacked by billions of bacteria whose numbers double every forty years. Either the host dies, or the virus dies, or both die. Gore Vidal
Trillions of bacteria are spread across the ancient oceans. And the waste oxygen they throw away is enough to build a new atmosphere for our planet. Chris Packham, Earth IV: Atmosphere, BBC 2023