Bacteria are microscopic organisms, single-celled creatures which live mostly on the surfaces of objects where they grow as colonies.
Bacteria are very important both to the world as a whole and to mankind in particular.
Bacteria are important in making soil, feeding cows, controlling insects, making medicines, making bioplastics, making plants grow, degrading pollutants such as oil and plastics as well as in causing disease. Microbiology is a huge and growing industry and even if you never intend to study microbiology any further than these pages it will be good for you to have some appreciation of the roles bacteria play in all our lives. Studying something you cannot see, something which is not pretty, colourful or cute in any form is perhaps a more cerebral activity than many people would like. I hope that this will allow you to experience a little of the amazement bacteria stimulate in the many people who study them. However by the very nature of their small size and the limitations this puts on us when we studying them much of the information is a bit dry and chemical.