OK, folks, it's time to face the end of the Age of Antibiotics. We gave Infectious Disease a kick in the groin about a hundred years ago but he's not down for the count. No, according the Gospel of Darwin, that which isn't exterminated gets totally pumped up and comes back with a chip on its shoulder.

Now, I'd been hearing about this for maybe the last, oh, ten years, and in the last five years or so, I've been able to watch the threshold rise at which doctors will prescribe antibiotics. The logic all makes perfect sense. In the same way that pesticides give rise to pesticide-resistant pests, antibiotics give rise to antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

It's fairly common knowledge that hospitals (ostensibly places of healing) these days harbor "superbugs": bacteria which, if they infect you, scoff at your so-called "treatments". Brr. Of course if our snazzy antibiotics can't make a dent, your miserable immune system is basically going to stand by and watch in shock and awe as the bacteria do whatever they please.

Here's what really rocked me back on my heels last week: a colleague and friend of mine at work fell at a skating rink, scraped his elbow, and subsequently came down with one of these superbugs, MRSA, or Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus aureus (see terrifying details). He had to undergo surgery to remove the infected piece of his elbow joint (the bursa) and is being treated with some kind of scorched-earth, chemotherapy-strength antibiotic. Let's just review that again. Surgery. For an infection. That's new. And this guy didn't have an immune system compromised by weeks and months of some other debilitating illness in a hospital setting; he was out skating.

What this means is that the superbugs are moving out of the hospitals and are ready to take on healthy "walking-around" people with fully charged immune systems.

Of course we can fight back. As a species, I mean, not individually. OK, team, listen close—here's the plan: All of us whose immune system can't handle the superbugs will die and not mate with those whose immune systems can! Lather, rinse, repeat and in a couple of generations we'll be on our way to a species that's can really give those superbugs a run for their money. Let's have a good clean game, team, play hard, and remember, have fun!