Rather than being slowly eroded and destroyed, countless numbers of varied forms of life adapt to the diverse aspects of an ever changing environment. However, the amount of variation is maintained at a practical optimum, as too much variation would make the population ill-adapted in a stable environment, while too little variation would render it unable to adapt to environmental stresses. This principle is perhaps well exemplified by a phenomenon described for microbial cells termed ‘‘persistence’’where in the face of antibiotics bacterial populations avoid extinction by harboring a subpopulation of druginsensitive dormant cells. Although this phenomenon poses a major obstacle for the treatment of infectious diseases, persistence has been underappreciated for some time as a mechanism for bacteria to evade antibiotics. But the mechanisms of bacterial persistence are becoming clearer and so are ways to combat them. This article highlights the phenomenon of survival and persistence in cells as diverse as microbial and human and summarizes the recent advances that have taken us one step closer to understanding what persistence is all about.