E. coli, or Escherichia coli, is a microorganism that we encounter almost every day, but which is also one of the most important tools of biological science. Many major events in the history of biology are associated with it, from the discovery of DNA to the latest achievements of genetic engineering. E. coli is the most studied living thing on Earth. Interestingly, E. coli is a social microbe. The author draws surprising and disturbing parallels between the life of E. coli and our own lives. It shows how this microorganism changes almost before the eyes of researchers, revealing before their amazed gaze the billions of years of evolution encoded in its genome. The publication was prepared with the support of Dmitry Zimin's Dynasty Foundation. Dynasty The Dynasty Foundation for non-profit programs was founded in 2001 by Dmitry Borisovich Zimin , honorary president of VimpelCom. The Foundation's priority areas of activity are support for fundamental science and education in Russia, popularization of science and education. As part of the program to popularize science, the Foundation has launched several projects. Among them is the website elementy.ru, which has become one of the leading thematic resources on the Russian-language Internet, as well as the Dynasty Library project - a publication of modern popular science books, carefully selected by expert scientists. The book you are holding in your hands was published as part of this project.