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Searching for superbug cures in the salt flats of the Atacama Desert

Over the past century, antibiotics have revolutionised medicine, turning once-deadly infections into brief inconveniences. But, as bacteria evolve in response to their use, these drugs are becoming less effective, with expert projections estimating antibiotic-resistant infections could account for 39 million deaths between 2024 and 2050.

In Life Invisible, the directors Bettina Perut and Iván Osnovikoff follow the Chilean scientist Cristina Dorador as she searches for answers to the threat of antibiotic resistance in the driest place on Earth outside the polar regions – the Atacama Desert in Chile. However, this search for novel microbes, and the landscape Dorador has loved since childhood, is increasingly threatened by lithium extraction. Demand for batteries, including those used in green technologies, has accelerated mining, endangering the environment and placing increasing strain on Indigenous communities. Perut and Osnovikoff’s film builds a clever juxtaposition of scale, setting Dorador’s meticulous work against the sublime grandeur of the Atacama, revealing its importance, beauty and fragility.

Directors: Bettina Perut, Iván Osnovikoff

Producers: Harri Grace, Paul King

Website: Guardian Documentaries, Perut+Osnovikoff

videoEcology and environmental sciences

How beautiful bioluminescent bacteria can expose invisible water pollution

How airborne microbes ride clouds, hop continents and even make it rain

videoEcology and environmental sciences

The tree frog die-off that sparked a global mystery – and revealed a dark truth

videoEarth science and climate

A biologist on the sorrows of documenting the Great Salt Lake’s collapse

It’s our responsibility to engineer corals that can weather the world we’ve created

Explore a bioluminescent world of cellular life via cutting-edge microscopy

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Living off-grid on a remote Scottish island is a mix of rejection and acceptance

On the run from COVID-19, an Indigenous family treks deep into the Amazon rainforest

Obsession and electricity: a scientist chases the origins of life in the lab

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