Tag Archives: Cordyceps

Health

What Cordyceps, The ‘Zombie’ Fungus On ‘The Last Of Us,’ Is Like IRL

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If we’re to believe HBO’s zombie apocalypse series The Last of Us, the end of humankind comes via the tentacles of a creepy-looking, brain-infecting fungus called cordyceps.

As with so many terrifying scenarios, the germ-gone-wild depicted in the hit show has roots in the real world. 

Cordyceps fungi are real organisms that are most at home in warm, humid climes. They take over the minds of ants as well as certain spiders, moths, locusts, and other arthropods, but thankfully, not humans. 

“The fungus attacks insects that live in the ground or soil,” said Rebeca Rosengaus, an associate professor and behavioral ecologist at Northeastern University. “Ants are one but there are also grasshoppers, spiders, locusts.”

Cordyceps’ official name is Ophiocordyceps unilateralis, and yes, scientists call it the “zombie-ant fungus.” It doesn’t spell the end of humankind, but it certainly does spell a grisly end for the creatures it infects.

Here’s how it works: The ant (or other arthropod) ambles innocently out of its nest, looking for food and blissfully unaware that cordyceps spores are raining down from a nearby tree or stem or branch. 

The spores latch onto the ant (or other creature), releasing digestive enzymes to break down the insect’s cuticle (hard outer shell). Threadlike growths, known as mycelia, start growing inward and eventually take over the insect’s brain, which start producing neurotransmitters that affect brain function. The transformation is complete: The ant begins to stumble and convulse, acting in a way that benefits cordyceps.

“The fungus basically hijacks the brain so the ants stop doing what ants do and start doing what the fungus wants it to do, which is climb up the tree trunk,” Rosengaus said. Once they’ve reached the treetops, the ants bite the stem or leaf in what’s known as a death grip. 

“That’s the last thing they do before the fungus starts growing from the neck or the head of the ant up,” Rosengaus said. 

The ants die within six hours of infection, and then two to three days later, a fungal stalk emerges from the neck. Then, the spores start raining down again and the cycle repeats.

That’s life, at least for arthropods.

“Like many organisms on the planet, it does what it needs to do to replicate and continue reproducing,” said Dr. Scott Roberts, associate medical director of infection prevention at the Yale School of Medicine.

Could this ever happen in humans?

The Last of Us is real life for ants but not for humans — at least not yet, Rosengaus said, although she wouldn’t rule it out way down the line. “The fact that we don’t have a pathogen that has been able to come up with this strategy to hijack our minds does not mean that it’s not a possibility at some point.”

For now, though, this isn’t likely to happen in humans. “One of the reasons for that is that humans are warm-blooded,” Roberts said. “Most fungi and molds do not grow well in high-temperature environments.” Humans, which have a body temperature of 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit, are most definitely inhospitable.  

“The creators of the show have taken a very niche moment in nature and fictionalized it,” Roberts added. “It’s a popular, great TV show, but it’s not really a viable or realistic portrayal of what could happen.”

“I don’t think we ought to be worried,” William Schaffner, an infectious diseases expert at Vanderbilt University, said. “A fungus is a much higher order, a much more complicated germ than a virus, so it would be a much more complicated phenomenon for this fungus to jump species.”

Real-life dangers

Which is not to say that humans can’t be infected by organisms that typically infect other species. 

“We do have zoonotic infections,” Roberts said. Mpox is a good example. So is COVID-19, which comes from the SARS-CoV-2 virus. “Often viruses and sometimes even fungi can be in another species and jump to other humans, but it usually needs progressive jumping back and forth [between humans and animals].”

Climate change is also introducing new dangers, including new fungi. One is a type of yeast called Candida auris. 

The organism’s adaptation to warmer temperatures is thought to be the reason it now has a better chance of being able to survive in the human body. (This is also the reason The Last of Us writers use to explain why cordyceps can infect people.)

While Candida auris gravitates to your skin, it can cause bloodstream infections and is often spread in hospitals and other healthcare settings. 

“If you’re healthy, it will stay on your skin and [even] go away, but if you have lines and catheters and have had surgeries, it can cause infections in wounds,” Roberts said. Those infections can spread not just to the bloodstream but also different organs, like the brain and heart. 

“It’s a type of the candida species that has emerged with climate change,” Roberts said. “It is possible that other fungi and mold will evolve to survive and reproduce in warmer climates.” 

Candida auris, which was first recognized only about 10 years ago, is already resistant to multiple drugs. It also spreads from person to person, unlike other types of molds or fungi that more often come from the environment, Roberts said. 

As with most fungi, if you’re healthy, Candida auris isn’t likely to cause any harm. If you’re immunocompromised or otherwise in frail health, though, they can cause severe infections and that can even be potentially life-threatening.

Separating fact from fiction

There’s another entity hijacking our brains right now: science fiction–esque misinformation masquerading as fact.

As long as you realize The Last of Us and other shows are fiction, there’s no harm done. 

“For decades, science fiction writers have taken basic ideas to an extreme. That’s part of the fun,” Schaffner said. “As wonderfully rich and extraordinary as real science is, there are real biological limitations, and this would be one of them. When it comes to real life, listen to public health. We’ll tie you to reality.”

It’s not like we need to look for things to worry about. “If you asked me whether this fungus or SARS-CoV-2 will be the end of us, one hundred times out of one hundred I’ll say SARS,” Roberts said.

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Technology

Activision Blizz Exec Has Most Unhinged Last Of Us Show Take

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Screenshot: HBO / Kotaku

The Last of Us inspired no shortage of takes when it first released back in 2013. The HBO TV adaptation has been no different. Like a massive EpiPen of stimulus for the take economy in middle of winter, it has elicited both over-the-top praise, scornful dismissals, and everything in-between. But what is potentially the worst take of all wasn’t born until today.

“Hi FTC — did you catch last night’s episode of The Last of Us?” tweeted Activision Blizzard’s Executive Vice President of Corporates Affairs and Chief Communications Officer, Lulu Cheng Meservey. “It was incredible.” What followed from the Call of Duty publisher’s recently hired serial poster was a cringey thread about how The Last of Us TV show proves Microsoft should be allowed to acquire the company for $69 billion.

For those who might be living under a rock and don’t know: The Last of Us is a harrowing tale about love, loss, and redemption in a world brought to its knees by pandemic. This week’s especially intimate and emotional episode moved many to tears. It moved Meservey to post about how the largest acquisition in the history of tech raises no red flags.

Microsoft and Activision Blizzard have been on the offensive ever since the Federal Trade Commission launched an anti-trust lawsuit against them, seemingly with the intent to wriggle loose a few more concessions before eventually letting the deal go through. It is a multi-faceted, omni-directional campaign that has Microsoft repeatedly talking about how much it sucks compared to Sony, both in terms of making games and now in terms of making TV shows. That was certainly the sentiment Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer conveyed last week when asked to compare The Last of Us TV show to the Halo TV show.

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“Sony’s talent and IP across gaming, TV, movies, and music are formidable and truly impressive,” Meservey tweeted today. “It’s no wonder they also continue to dominate as the market leader for consoles. In gaming, Sony is ‘the first of us’ – and they will be just fine without the FTC’s protection.”

Let the Cordyceps take me now.



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Health

Uh Oh, Scientists Figured Out How to Grow Terrifying Parasitic Mushrooms in the Lab

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Just in time for Halloween, scientists in Korea say they’ve found a better way to grow an insect-destroying mushroom in the lab. Their work could make studying these fungi easier, which is important, since they and the chemicals they produce may actually have medicinal uses for humans, creepy as they are.

The fungi is known as Cordyceps. Members of this genus, along with a related but distinct genus called Ophiocordyceps, are parasitic, usually feeding on insects and other arthropods. These fungi will invade and often kill their hosts, though not before using them as fuel to grow their fruiting bodies (technically, this is the part of the fungi that we call the mushroom) and release new infectious spores into the world to start the process all over again. Some members of Ophiocordyceps are also known for “zombifying” their ant hosts by manipulating their behavior before death to ensure their optimal survival.

As horrifying as their way of life is, some members of Cordyceps are considered food in parts of Asia. They’ve also been used in traditional Chinese medicine and more recently are being sold as supplements (supplements of any kind, it should be noted, have little quality control and aren’t necessarily harmless). And early research has suggested that Cordyceps produce chemicals that could have beneficial health effects, particularly a compound called cordycepin. Some studies have indicated, for instance, that cordycepin might have anti-viral or cancer-fighting properties.

This research has largely come from animal or lab studies, though, meaning it will take a lot more evidence in humans to confirm any potential benefits. These experiments and any eventual widespread use of Cordyceps will also require having ample supplies of the fungi or their compounds, and that’s a challenge. Though these fungi are found throughout the world, they’re hard to find and harvest from the wild. There are now ways to cultivate them in the lab, but the current methods only yield low amounts of healthy Cordyceps or cordycepin, making them hard to scale up.

Cordyceps militaris
Photo: charnsitr (Shutterstock)

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Researchers at Chungbuk National University tried to improve on these methods, which usually use brown rice as the growth medium. They theorized that these mushrooms would grow better on richer sources of protein—namely, insects. They also guessed that their diet would affect how large the fungi grew and how much cordycepin they produced, so they tested out different types of insects. These insect nurseries were kept growing for two months before the researchers harvested the Cordyceps. The team’s findings, published Wednesday in Frontiers in Microbiology, suggests that their insect theory was right on the money.

“Cordyceps grown on edible insects contained approximately 100 times more cordycepin compared to Cordyceps on brown rice,” said study author Mi Kyeong Lee, a professor at Chungbuk, in a statement from Frontiers.

As expected, though, there were differences in how the insect food affected their growth. The fungi were most plentiful when they fed on mealworms and silkworm pupae, for instance. But they actually produced the most cordycepin when they fed on Japanese rhinoceros beetles. The team’s work also indicates that it was the fat content of the insects, not their protein, that predicted how much cordycepin the mushrooms produced. The rhinoceros beetles were especially full of a type of fat called oleic acid, and once the team introduced oleic acid to a low-fat insect feed, the Cordyceps’ production of cordycepin rose as well.

“The cultivation method of Cordyceps suggested in this study will enable the production of cordycepin more effectively and economically,” Lee said.

While these scientists may have found an improved method of growing Cordyceps in the lab, you probably shouldn’t expect mass production just yet. The authors note that churning out insects on an industrial scale isn’t easy, either. So if these freaky fungi do turn out to be medically valuable, there’ll be more challenges ahead in developing them for mass use. That said, there is at least one research team at Oxford University actively studying a modified version of cordycepin as a cancer drug in early human trials.

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