A trillion species of microorganisms sustain all life on Earth and make the planet habitable: without microbes, we wouldn’t have bread, wine, or beer, nor could we dispose of waste. Above all, we wouldn’t exist. Not only the intestine, but also the immune system, for example, requires constant microbial contact to learn to distinguish friends from enemies. Where this intimate relationship is compromised, we get sick. A minority, approximately 1,400 species, however, cause infections, and to eliminate them we use tools of mass destruction like antibiotics, disinfectants, and detergents. But in doing so, we lose useful or harmless microbes, while the more dangerous ones, evading all treatment, survive. Today, we need more ecological and targeted solutions to preserve global microbial diversity. What we call the Anthropocene must find the right balance with the Microbiocene, an epoch that began almost four billion years ago and will continue as long as life remains on Earth. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A trillion species of microorganisms sustain all life on Earth and make the planet habitable: without microbes, we wouldn’t have bread, wine, or beer, nor could we dispose of waste. Above all, we wouldn’t exist. Not only the intestine, but also the immune system, for example, requires constant microbial contact to learn to distinguish friends […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":31983,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"tipologia_evento":[385],"anno_edizione":[501],"tag_evento_festival":[502],"class_list":["post-33929","eventi_festival","type-eventi_festival","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tipologia_evento-presentazione-di-libro","anno_edizione-501","tag_evento_festival-11-nov-2025"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n