resistance to antibiotics
antibiotics are medicines that help make our bodies resistant to diseases
for instance penicillin(discovered in 1943) was viewed as a breakthrough discovery in medicine
penicillin is one type of antibiotic
it was a significant improvement to the medicine available at the time and was used to cure many diseases from the flu to common bacterial infections
this had important implications during world war 2 when many soldiers were fighting on the battlefield
but just three years after the invention of penicillin doctors found that some germs form bacteria could not be killed with penicillin
in other words they had adapted to the penicillin antibiotics
and become stronger
these super strong bacteria are called superbugs
this means that traditional antibiotics like penicillin fail to kill superbug bacteria
medical researchers believe that bacteria sometimes change if they are exposed to the same antibiotic many times