Soil microbes: tiny living factories producing antibiotics

Did you know that many antibiotics that we use to treat infections weren't designed by scientists in the lab, but by microbes that live in the soil? Here you see a patch of forest floor from Irchel park and a Petri dish with several colonies of colorful bacteria and moulds growing on it. These tiny living factories make many different chemical molecules, some of which are powerful antibiotics. We don't have to go far to find them: every time you make a step in the park, forest, mountain or meadow, there are microbes making antibiotics right under your foot!
by Aleks Nivina, Paula Thiel Pizarro