Trailer for the series "The Last of Us" (HBO)
Yes, the hostile fungus is among us.
The apocalyptic series, "The Last of Us" - inspired by the successful video game - draws its inspiration from reality and our ecology, when it turns out that the deadly fungus that created the zombies in the series definitely exists in nature.
The Cordyceps fungus that evokes the touching zombies (or clickers, if you insist) — that Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Ellie (Bella Ramsay) battle in the HBO Max series — is a real parasite that actually takes over small insects, the New York Botanical Garden's parasitic fungus expert explained. York, Joao Araujo, in conversation with National Geographic.
Creator Neil Druckman said he was inspired for the 2013 video game after watching a nature documentary about what Cordyceps does to insects in real life.
"This fungus makes its way into the brains of insects and completely changes their behavior," he told NPR a decade ago, "and you know, we immediately thought, 'What if it gets to humans?'
Because you can only imagine how much worse this fate is than death, when your mind is still there - but something else controls your body."
A fungus that produces the zombies in "The Last of Us" is in our ecosystems and harms insects (Photo: GettyImages)
Only a certain type of Cordyceps - known as Ophiocordyceps - has the ability to take over a specific insect in the immediate environment.
Of the estimated 600 Ophiocardispes fungi, only 35 are known to have zombie-making capabilities, according to Araujo.
The parasite first causes erratic behavior within the host.
The fungus is then believed to grow cells around the insect's brain and nervous system, thereby hijacking the ability to control the insect's muscles, according to Ian Will, a fungal geneticist at the University of Central Florida.
A parasitic Cordyceps fungus takes full hold of the host, such as the moth in the picture (Photo: GettyImages, Getty Images/iStockphoto)
Although all scientific signs indicate that Ophiocardispas fungi have almost no effect on humans - our body temperatures, 37 degrees Celsius, are too hot for them - Will admits that climate change is changing the nature of these fungi.
"Fantastically, the plot makes sense, but it's not likely to happen in real life... If going from an ant species is difficult, then going all the way to humans - that's definitely science fiction," Will told National Geographic, "but this idea that temperature plays a role In fungal infections, it definitely makes sense."
Also on the same subject,
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"The Last of Us" is based on a fungus that exists in nature (Photo: official website, Liane Hentscher/HBO)
Fungi like those from "The Last of Us" ideally thrive on a host temperature of 25 to 30 degrees Celsius, but Johns Hopkins Medicine infectious disease expert Samuel Shoham warns that this too may change in the coming years.
"With global warming, there is concern that the change between ambient temperature and body temperature will not be as dramatic," he told National Geographic, "hypothetically, this would make it easier for fungi that evolved in warmer external temperatures to survive inside the human body."
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To the full article
Cordyceps fungus like in "The Last of Us" exists and harms insects in nature (Photo: GettyImages, Getty Images/iStockphoto)
In 2007, Candida auris, a fungal species capable of infecting humans, was discovered, which later spread to three continents.
Scientists fear that this is a result of rising temperatures.
While its effect was minimal on humans with healthy immune systems, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that about 30 to 60 percent of infected patients—who were in complex health conditions—died.
"It came out of nowhere," Arthuro Casdwell, an infectious disease expert at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, told National Geographic. "The idea is that this fungus was out there and over the years it adapted to higher temperatures until it was able to break through."
However, it remains a consolation that the prospect of an apocalyptic genetic variation - at least when it comes to Ophiocardyspes fungi - will not happen in our lifetime.
"If the fungus really wanted to infect mammals, it would require millions of years of genetic changes to do so," Araujo concluded.
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