8 Horribly Depressing Scientific Discoveries

4. Antibiotic Apocalypse

Or: The World Might End With Us All Sh*tting Ourselves To Death, And Nobody Cares

If you switched off and hovered over the "Next" button upon reading that heading, then you're part of the problem too.

The thing is about antibiotic resistance, is that it doesn't have the high impact appeal of something like an asteroid collision or zombie outbreak, but it's one of the few apocalypse scenarios that is not only likely to happen, but could do so within some of our lifetimes.

One of the biggest problems is that it's a little complex to explain. So, in a nutshell, antibiotic resistance is essentially a form of accelerated evolution. When you take antibiotics, it will kill the weakest bacteria easily, but the strongest ones could survive treatment and go on to multiply into lots more bacteria just as strong as they are creating a whole new strain that can't be treated with antibiotics. The effect is even worse if you don't take your medication properly or finish the course.

This isn't just a case of getting tonsillitis a bit more often. Not having antibiotics means that we can't do surgery. Hospitals become death traps. We can't give chemotherapy. We run the risk of dying in droves from tiny wounds. Infant mortality will skyrocket. That bad.

Essentially, this puts us back into the dark ages, unless we can come up with an alternative. Now, whilst we can't all develop new, life-saving medicines, one of the major driving forces behind this is patients demanding antibiotics from their doctors when they don't really need them.

So, rather than popping a pill the next time you feel under the weather, think about whether you really need it, or if you could probably just take an extra sick day to help save the future of the human race.