What?
A pandemic of the worst kind: one that is transforming humanity into mindless brain-teasing horror creatures.
Where seen?
From television series like The Walking Dead and computer games like The Last of Us, to horror movie classics like Dawn of the Dead (1978): The idea of an apocalyptic and unstoppable zombie outbreak has been one of the most popular horror scenarios for decades.
How close are we?
Everyone has been able to experience up close in recent years that a virus can develop into a pandemic. That’s bad enough, but the better horror story makes it even more colorful. In those kinds of stories, viruses not only cost you your life, but they also transform your remains into a shuffling, rotting, brain-eating monster. So a zombie.
Fortunately, zombies are in the same category as vampires, werewolves, the Abominable Snowman and the Loch Ness Monster: fictional creatures to cringe at, but not something that shows up in the real world. However? Well, uh… no.
Of course the first undead human has yet to rise from the grave, but take a look at nature and the zombies appear to be crawling over the tree leaves in terrifying hordes.
In that case, the culprit is not a human virus, but an equally unsociable fungus that mainly targets ants. Ophiocordyceps unilateralis that creature is called, and ants infested with it walk about confusedly and literally without will, while convulsively moving their jaws.
Sounds familiar. Yet the zombie reality turns out to be even more distasteful than the fiction. Fungus ants migrate to the most populated locations – tree leaves, for example – chain themselves there, creating a spear inside the ant that shoots out through the head and spreads the fungus further. That way you can Ophiocordyceps unilateralis create an army of millions of fungal ants in no time.
And then he also has a nephew, cordyceps ignota, who – brrr – counts tarantulas among his favorite victims. The fungus eats the inside of the spider, after which the spider’s body bursts open and the fungal threads shoot out of the remaining shell like pillars.
It is therefore quite logical that Cordyceps also appears in horror fiction. In the popular zombie computer game The Last of Us, for example, in which the fungus has made the leap to humans. Not such a crazy thought: there are plenty of pathogens that transfer from humans to animals. Fortunately, there is no indication that Cordyceps, or any relatives, can do such a thing.
There is, however, a precedent for behavior-influencing parasites in humans. The single-celled parasite toxoplasmosa gondii lives estimated in about 30 to 50 percent of the world’s population, because it shows up in the feces of our beloved domestic cats. Once in our body, it ensures, among other things, that men (but, strangely enough, not women) can smell the smell of cat urine. suddenly feel less dirty† And then there are also, very questionable thoughindications that the parasite can make people more reckless.
That doesn’t exactly make you a shuffling, brain-eating undead, but hey: it’s a start.