by With the HIT HBO series “The last of us” On April 13, fans returned for the second season and fascinated the terrible concept of a mushroom pandemic that turns people back into zombies: How much of this terrifying story is rooted in reality?
While the idea that mushrooms create zombie -like people, how far fetched, have examined real scientists, have examined the connection behind fungal development and climate change, and the threat mushrooms can represent for different ways.
A scene from the HBO series
We know the following about science that inspired the premise of the show:
Can Cordyceps infect people?
In “The Last of Us” Cordyceps – a real mushroom that infects insects – develops into a harmful pathogen for humans due to a warming climate. In reality, “Zombie-Ant Mushroom” or Ophiocordyceps Unilateralis is a parasitic fungus that infects and manipulated the behavior of carpentry ants, which ultimately leads to her death.
Dr. Jim Kronstad, a microbiologist at the University of British Columbia, explains that Cordyceps mushrooms are not possible to adapt to humans from infecting insects. Our body temperature and immunity prevent most mushroom types from adapting to the human body because they cannot survive over 98.6 degrees.
In the first season of the TV series, which was adapted from a video game from 2013 with the same name, the Cordyceps zombies used tentacles to infect people. However, the second season shows that the zombies have also developed to spread the mushrooms through air pores.
“It is more realistic how people acquire fungal infections,” said Krronstad.
Climate change and mushroom adjustment
In the opening scene of the show, an epidemiologist in 1968 theoreted was that climate change could stimulate a mushroom eruption that would lead to a zombie apocalypse, and today scientists are concerned that a warming planet increases the risk of fungal infections in humans.
With increasing temperatures, some mushrooms can adapt under warmer conditions, which may be more able to infect people.
An example in the real world that mushrooms are spread further due to climate change Valley fevercaused by the coccidioides mushroom. This pathogen thrives in hot, dry areas such as the southwestern United States. If disturbed soil releases spores in the air, they can be inhaled, which leads to a flu -like disease that can become serious in some cases. Rising temperatures and lengthy drought that make the conditions drier have been correlated with an increase in growth and the spread of the mushroom, say experts.
“There were some really thoughtful and careful studies in which it was examined how different temperature changes influence drying and more drier conditions would move from the desert southwest to North America,” said Kronstad. This means that the mushroom can hike into new areas with the climate, which increases the number of endangered people.
Last year saw California A strong increase in Valley fever cases. While the Central Valley – especially between Fresno and Bakersfield – has long been a hotspot, the increasing temperatures press the fungus further north. Areas like Sacramento and North California They now see increased infections, a trendy scientist who connects directly with climate-oriented shifts in temperature and soil conditions.
Farming threats to agriculture
Climate change and fungi not only threaten the human body, but also what flows into it.
If the temperatures change, pathogenic fungi of the plant pathogenic cans that damage plants or kill areas in which they have not yet been a problem can spread agriculture and the threat to global nutritional security.
“Mushrooms are actually the most devastating causes of harvest loss and threats to sustainability,” Krronstad told CBS News. “And climate change could also influence this if mushrooms move to other areas in which they may not have caused a disease.”
Advantages and risks of mushrooms
Despite their terrible representation in the series, mushrooms are not all bad. In fact, they play an important role in ecosystems, including the decomposition of organic materials and as carbon attempts.
“Mushrooms are super important, it is phenomenal what they did for people,” said Krronstad. They are used in everything, from pharmaceuticals to food production, and some even help to recycle nutrients in ecosystems.
While a zombie apocalypse like that in “The Last of Us” remains fictional, the way mushrooms react to climate change is real and worrying. Scientists monitor exactly how heating temperatures could make some mushrooms more resistant and adaptable, which may lead to increased infections in both humans and plants.
While we can continue to enjoy the TV show as a science fiction, the idea that climate change could affect the spread and adaptation of harmful fungi can seriously.
When is “The Last of Us” Season 2 Premiere?
“The Last of Us” returns to HBO and Max on Sunday, April 13, at 9:00 p.m. ET/PT and brings the terrifying world back in which fungal infections have changed humanity.
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