'It is hubris to think a fungal pandemic can't happen to us' | Hacker News Reader

'It is hubris to think a fungal pandemic can't happen to us'

theguardian.com

13 pointsBrajeshwar8 comments

Well I mean technically almost anything "could" happen.

But a guy promoting his book, and a lazy journalist at the Guardian mixing in some images from the zombie tv show "the last of us" does not an article make.

There is a reason zombie fungus isn't and hasn't been a mammal problem. Fungi don't like the heat. I think we're good as long as that's true.

That's literally the backstory of 'Last of Us'...the zombifying fungus evolved to crack the heat problem.

Yes, and it's entertaining fiction. On the other hand, in boring reality if fungus could do this, it would have, there's enormous energy to be had.

I'm always alarmed that there are people who intentionally eat cordyceps. I first learned about them in regards to the mind control effects they have over their zombie prey. I guess they don't infect humans, but it seems like a huge risk.

There's a pretty huge genetic jump from 'infecting caterpillars' to 'infecting humans'. It's not like a chemical poison where 'it kills that species, so it'll probably kill me'; those genes have to evolve to the specific host, and that takes time and a favorable environment. Lot's of things to worry about before that.

It takes time for a complex relationship between parasite and host to form, but it might take substantially less for an adaptation to the original host to have a negative affect on a different host. For a hypothetical example a slight modification of the chemical pathway that induces light seeking in insects may interfere with visual processing in a human. There are about 1.5 million species of entomopathogenic fungi, and we generally don't know the exact pathway by which they attack their hosts.

Conceptually similar, Toxoplasma Gondii is a protozoan that reproduces in feline digestive tissue, and it evolved to get there by manipulating mice into getting themselves eaten. Humans infected with it obviously don't sacrifice themselves to cats, but it does appear to have several negative affects on human brain chemistry.

Humans infected with it obviously don't sacrifice themselves to cats

Not a cat owner, I see.

But yes, genetic collateral damage is always a possibility, but that's (also) very different than the idea that people eating cordyceps will one day soon start sprouting fruiting bodies out of their ears (and/or craving brains).

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