HBO recently premiered ‘The Last of Us,’ a show inspired by the video game of the same name dealing with a zombie apocalypse. The show's premise finds characters Joel and Ellie trying to survive while cordyceps that can alter humans and turn them into zombies run rampant. While the show is fiction, cordyceps are real parasites.
According to New York Botanical Garden parasitic fungi expert Joao Araujo, cordyceps can move with a hostile takeover of insects in a nearby environment. It was noted that out of the 600 types of ophiocordyceps, only 35 could turn their hosts into zombies.
The parasite reportedly inspired creator Neil Druckmann to create the video game after he saw cordyceps in a nature documentary. While speaking to NPR, Druckmann said, “It’s this fungus that burrows its way into insects’ minds and completely alters their behavior.” The creator continued saying the parasite caused him to think, “‘What if it jumped to humans?’ Cause you could imagine this fate worse than death, that your mind is still there, but something else is controlling your body.”
A fungal geneticist from the University of Florida named Ian Will noted that cordyceps fungi have almost no impact on humans because of their 98.6 Fahrenheit body temperatures. However, Will said climate change could alter ophiocordyceps.
“In a fantastical way, the logical links are there, but it’s not likely to happen in real life … If a jump from an ant species is hard, to jump to humans — that’s definitely sci-fi. But this idea that temperature plays a role in fungal infections is certainly reasonable,” said Will. While speaking about the fungi to National Geographic, Infectious disease specialist Shmuel Shoham said, “As the Earth warms up, there is concern that the change between environment temperature and body temperature won’t be as dramatic.” He continued saying, “Hypothetically, that would make it easier for fungi that have evolved to withstand hotter outdoor temperatures to also be able to survive inside the human body.”
Source: NY Post
