La nuit du vivant - Voyage au cœur de la pourriture

Rot is beautiful, delicious and essential to life! The spectacular images of this first episode prove it and encourage the viewer to change their perception of a hidden aspect of life: the micro-organisms that recycle matter.

Thanks to rot enthusiasts, nature is cleaned of dead plants and animals. Thus, some animals and three micro-organisms (molds, yeasts and bacteria) recycle matter.

At the beginning of life on Earth, there were bacteria. These single-celled organisms, capable of adapting to all environments, even the most extreme, are constitutive of all living things... even if human beings often consider them - and sometimes rightly so - as mortal enemies!

Yeasts are single-celled microscopic fungi that reproduce rapidly. Baker's yeast serves as a model for researchers to understand, among other things, the processes of cancer development.

Molds are multicellular microscopic filamentous fungi. There are more than one and a half million mold species! Velvety, short, stringy, woolly, grainy... each mold has its own style and food preferences.

When, carried by the air, a mold spore finds its way into a damaged fruit, it develops and the fruit becomes moldy.

As a brush, a duster, a bunch, a pompom... The thousand and one ways in which spores are made and organized fascinate scientists and offer quite unusual shapes and colors.

To make sure food is edible, we associate certain colors with a hazard - and we should! By transforming the living, rot takes on varied and unprecedented tints to be admired beyond the repulsion they can create!

There is no life cycle without rot. The recycling of matter and the development of spores are favored by high levels of humidity and light. Temperature also plays its role, even if rot can develop in our fridges!

In nature, nothing is wasted. Everything is recycled... This is also true for rot!

Bacteria, molds and yeasts reproduce. As scientists say, they do it near us, on us and even in us!

In the first few centimeters of the ground lives a greater number of living beings than on the entire surface of the planet, excluding the underwater world. This shows the importance of humus, an organic matter that nourishes the plants and helps maintain the ecological balance. Beside, the year 2015 has been declared the…

When food is rotten, its smell disgusts us. Foul, earthy, or putrid odors were long associated with disease, particularly the plague. However, strong smells sometimes announce gastronomic pleasures!

Seasoned, fermented, gamy, marinated, smoked foods are not always our favourite. Japanese natto, Chinese 100-year-old egg, long-aged French cheeses, or even Swedish surströmming... Even steeped in rot, the dishes that we consider appetizing vary according to cultures and times!

Decomposition disgusts most of us. This universal emotion has the primary function of protecting us from toxic substances. But there are other forms of disgust such as associative and moral disgusts...