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Zombie Ants and Killer Fungus
nibbles2004 writes "An article in the Guardian newspaper shows how parasitic fungi evolved the ability to control ants they infect, ultimately leading the ant to its death. The fungus controls the ant's movements to a suitable leaf and causes the ant to grip onto the leaf's central stem, allowing the fungus to spore, which will allow more ants to become infected."
I wonder if the zombie ants have a higher chance of infecting others if the leaves they cling to are the leaves of GRAAAAIIIIIINNNNSSS?
I am scientifically inaccurate.
M. Night Shiamalan will probably make a stupid movie about this.
But isn't this same fungus found in some humans, too? It doesn't cause them to climb trees, but it does tend to make them more aggressive, paranoid, and less able to deal with authority IIRC. I thought there was a /. story about it, and how the the higher a country's proportion of infection was, the more likely they were to have a better Soccer team...
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
I'm a fungus aficionado, if there is such a thing, and here I was all excited that they'd actually made some progress explaining how the fungus causes the ants to carry out such very specific behaviors. And the summary made it sound like that... But it basically boiled down to a sentence or two at the end of the article saying "We think the fungus uses some kind of chemicals on the ants. We don't really know." What a bunch of bullshit.
Lighten up, Francis.
... and has been linked to schizophrenia in humans
I heard that before ... but only from the voices in my head!
...is obviously giving the ants tiny red crowbars.