In The Last of Us, cordyceps evolved into a harmful fungus thanks to a warming climate. A new Nature paper highlights warming climate as potential contributor to spread of harmful fungi and noted discovery of a new fungus last year in humans, which had previously been found only in the environment.
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1079373
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The new season of The Last of Us has a spore-ting chance at realism
The Last of Us is back on April 13 and this season is more realistic than ever.
The trailer for the hit HBO series appears to show the “zombie fungus” cordyceps infecting humans by releasing air-borne spores, instead of through tentacles—closer to scientific reality.
Spread the love (and spores)
“Fungi love to make spores,” says Dr. Jim Kronstad, a professor and microbiologist at UBC’s Michael Smith Laboratories. Real-life cordyceps colonizes ant brains, causing the insect to climb to a high branch. The fungus then punches through the ant’s head and rains spores down on the forest floor.
Indeed, many fungal diseases than infect humans, such as Cryptococcus neoformans, which causes meningitis in humans, are spread by inhaling spores.
It’s not the only thing the show gets right. In The Last of Us, cordyceps – which is harmless, even edible, in real life — evolved into a harmful fungus thanks to a warming climate.
In a recent Nature paper, Dr. Kronstad and co-authors highlight a warming climate as a potential contributor to the spread of harmful fungi like Coccidioides, which causes valley fever, and the current rise of Candida auris, which infects hospitalized patients and is resistant to available antifungal drugs.
The authors also noted the discovery of a new fungus last year, Rhodosporidiobolus fluvialis, in humans, which had previously been found only in the environment.
Yes fungi can infect humans, and can be difficult to treat. This absolutely does not mean that they can turn us into zombies. Our nervous system is almost certainly far too complex for that and fungi are far too simple.
Yup, hence the space race to Mars. All those at the top know it’s time to leave.
They’ll be back though, after the next ice age puts the Earth back to rights again – to “recreate man in their own image” from the regressed apes they find here. So some of us do survive. It’s all a big cycle.
Well, the fungus was towed outside the environment.
This is the future – warnings about the horrors that climate change are causing are just used as a press release to advertise a TV show lmao.
Better than the current timeline we’re in. Bring it on!
“it’s just like my video game tv shows”
Classic reddit moment
There’s an oomycete that only lives in warm countries. The only cure we know of is to amputate the infected parts before it spreads, or death will follow. If the infection happens in an eye after swimming you can only hope to have it identified really fast if you want any chance of survival.
My wife did her PhD thesis on a faster diagnostic method. Probably saved some lives already.
I wonder how much warmer it would need to get before this oomycete spreads to more populated areas…
It’s compounded by the fact that human body temperatures have been dropping. One theory is we have less parasites infections in modern time so we don’t require as high a temperature. So if we have fungus that can survive in higher temperatures while our bodies are dropping in temperature, we’ll meet in the middle much sooner.