Could the Cordyceps Fungus Really Take Over?

I love that seemingly all of society is only now going through stages of fears that I went through back in 2013 thanks to the last of us

The reason why the zombies from Last of Us sound like they're crying or screaming in horror is because the people that are infected are aware of what they are doing, but have no control in stopping themselves from what they are doing. That's what makes this all the more terrifying. Imagine you rip apart your family and can't stop yourself.

As an Ant Keeper, fungus infecting ants under my care, especially queens is a worst fear of mine. One time a Queen Ant I had was injured and exiled from her colony because of aggression from another Queen. A few days later, this fungus was growing out of her gaster. The Queen died and I just threw out her body in a testube. I haven’t had any fungus scares since. It still remains in the back of my mind all the time to make sure it never happens again.

After I watched the first episode of The Last of Us, I had nightmares about the fungus actually being able to evolve it was terryifying

The mind being untouched makes it even more horrific ... Imagine ... being controlled by a fungus but still having all your thinking capactity and being full aware of what is going on.

If the fungus doesn’t affect the brain that just makes it so much worse. Imagine being fully aware that you’re about to die and your body is moving on it’s own while you watch helplessly.

The fact that you can see the fungus tendrils coming out of infected ants’ mouths in some of these clips…the writers really did their research for the show!

I definitely want a Hello Fresh membership that involves being sent mushrooms/fungi after watching this episode!

what's so crazy about the prisoner inside its own body is that the developers of tlou actually payed attention to it and in one of the scenes when you're running away from the infected you can hear a zombie cry and say ''i don't want to eat you''

One of the craziest/scariest things about multicellular fungi: the nucleus of their cells can migrate. The mycellium structure connects the cells together and the nuclei will travel to where they are most needed. If a fungus encounters something strange like a substance that can't be broken down, nuclei will concentrate in that area to try and find one with a mutation that allows them to eat the thing. If they succeed, that nucleus proliferates. They basically stear their own evolution by committee and are profoundly adaptable as a result.

Just to let you guys know, even if cordyceps somehow manage to infect us and take over, the amount of energy required to completely overpower the brains electrical signals to the muscles and the exact amount of energy required to make it move would be impossible for it to do anything, other than weakening you. Combine with the fact you have a natural disease fucking system (immune system) and your body telling those controlled muscle cells to self delete, you should be fine. The most common symptoms of this would most likely be muscle weakness, muscle deterioration, muscle spasms and high fever. The human body is simply too built for something like this to work.

The fact I've been terrified of this way before TLOU was even a concept, it just brought all of my fears to life.

I just realized, in the last of us, when you reach the part where Sam started wondering if the infected still had people inside them without any control of their bodies, I thought he was being delusional out of the fear of turning but he was actually making a lot of sense.

The true horror factor is that, this is the most realistic zombie outbreak we could get

Whenever I see/hear people talking about the beauty of life or creation I remember stuff like this. It ain’t all sunshine and rainbows.

I love this video and how well she covers these topics. Hopefully she might do a few more on human/primate/mammal integration/interaction with our microbiome as well as how critical fungal and bacteria balance is for both that and even soil health.

The fact that the ant is probably aware of what's going down is so much more horrifying than having it's brain taken over...There's a good twist on a zombie movie plot waiting for the horror genre right there...

I usually scoff at the saying "fate worse than death" but a situation of losing control of body with your mind still intact and fully aware truly does seem like that.

I am also a scriptwriter and I liked the transition from Fungus to Hello Fresh (starts @16:30..)- it has smoothly segued, transformed the story and took over the screen. 😉

This was extremely well done. I'm seriously interested in the future findings as scientist research more on Toxoplasma gondii. I wonder if they could eliminate the infection in a group of people and then see if after some healing time if they would be considered as showing signs of schizophrenia.