Bacteria

"Molecular biology has shown that even the simplest of all living systems on earth today, bacterial cells, are exceedingly complex objects. Although the tiniest bacterial cells are incredibly small, weighing less than [one trillionth of a gram], each is in effect a veritable micro-miniaturized factory containing thousands of exquisitely designed pieces of intricate molecular machinery, made up altogether of one hundred thousand million atoms, far more complicated than any machine built by man and absolutely without parallel in the non-living world ..."

"[A bacterium] weighs as little as 0.00000000001 gram. A blue whale weighs about 100,000,000 grams. Yet bacteria can kill a whale."

"If you equate the probability of the birth of a bacterial cell to that of the chance assembly of its component atoms, even eternity will not suffice to produce one for you."

"When I woke up just after dawn on September 28, 1928, I certainly didn’t plan to revolutionize all medicine by discovering the world’s first antibiotic, or bacteria killer, ... But I guess that was exactly what I did."

"[The smallest bacterium] is so much more like people than Stanley Miller’s mixtures of chemicals, because it already has these system properties. So to go from a bacterium to people is less of a step than to go from a mixture of amino acids to that bacterium."

"At Pueblo, each shell is pierced by a robot arm, and the mustard agent inside is sucked out. The shell is washed and baked to destroy any remaining traces. The mustard agent is diluted in hot water, then broken down by bacteria in a process not unlike the one used in sewage treatment plants. It yields a residue that is mostly ordinary table salt, Mr. Levi said, but is laced with heavy metals that require handling as hazardous waste. “Bacteria are amazing,” Mr. Levi said as he watched shells being destroyed during the last day of operations at Pueblo. “Find the right ones, and they’ll eat just about anything.”"

"A very small event in the microbial community can have an enormous impact on the environment."

"I’m surprised to see people get so wildly excited about a possible bacterium on Mars when our own planet is crawling with undiscovered species."

"Twelve thousand people die because of drug-resistant bacteria in Canada every year"

"I’m not talking about people, Natasha. I’m talking about bacteria, the real rulers of the Earth."