Bacteria: The Tiny Giants

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Factual: Science & Nature

New series uncovering the science and magic of bacteria.

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Bacteria: The Tiny Giants: Microbial Cities and New Worlds

Microbial Cities and New Worlds

BBC Radio 4 - Bacteria: The Tiny Giants, Microbial Cities and New Worlds

Tim Hayward enters the bacterial jungle and discovers a whole new world of possibilities.

After years in professional kitchens, Tim Hayward has long seen bacteria as the enemy. Now he’s starting to wonder if that’s quite right, but is wholly unprepared for what unfolds.

Tim Hayward has been in and around professional kitchens for years - and has long seen bacteria as the enemy, attempting to kill them at every opportunity and in every possible way. In this three-part series, he starts to wonder if things are quite as simple as that and, before long, discovers that these tiny organisms are unlike anything he had ever imagined.

In this first episode, Tim climbs aboard the Magic School Bus to go on a bacteria hunt, gets shrunken down to the size of a microbe, and witnesses time travel and evolution in an Erlenmeyer flask.

Features:
Laura Hug, environmental microbiologist, University of Waterloo
Richard Lenski, evolutionary biologist, Michigan State University
Justin Stewart, evolutionary biologist, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

Presenter: Tim Hayward
Producer and sound design: Richard Ward
Executive Producer: Rosamund Jones
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