Runners, stalkers and clickers

I regularly follow the news of videogame world, and with my love for mushrooms, this particular piece has naturally drawn my special attention. Last week, I wrote about a nice casual game (hold on, I think my little namekos have run out of food... will be back in a second...)

Right, where was I? Oh, yes. Games featuring fungi. I am talking, of course, about "The last of us". Unlike the cheerful inhabitants of "Mushroom garden", these fungi are not something you'd want to meet in real life. They infect humans, turning them into zombies, and trust me, it's not pretty. Here is a link to some artwork. 18+. You have been warned.

This is the correct position

The inspiration for the plot comes from ant disease caused by a fungus called Ophiocordyceps unilateralis. Once a spore settles on an ant, the fungus rapidly takes over its body and alters its behaviour. Eventually, the ant dies and the fruit body ruptures its exoskeleton, releasing spores and spreading the infection. The insects die attached to leaf veins on the underside of leaves. Curiously, almost all of the images I have seen on the web are the the wrong way up. Why? No idea.

So, how likely are humans to be infected by a mutated fungus and turn into hideous zombies? Not at all, actually. Ants are very small and have a very simple nervous system. It doesn't take much to take over it. Now, if we think of a slightly larger animal, such as a frog, things are not so disastrous. A good example are golden frogs, whose population is being decimated by parasitic fungi in Central America. However, it is only untreated frogs that die, so in the attempt to save the species, conservationists capture the frogs, quarantine them and treat them with antifungal drugs. The frogs recover fully and are released back into the wild. Going up to human scale of things, I think I do remember a case when a young girl with an impaired immune system had such a severe fungal infection that she had fruit bodies growing inside her nose. But did she turn into a zombie? Nope. Once the cause of her illness was discovered, the treatment was trivial, and the infection cleared within days. So I don't think we have to worry about stuff other than athlete's foot and ringworm. Just keep some clotrimazole capsules at home, and we should all be safe from this particular kind of apocalypse.

But who needs to worry about plausibility of apocalyptic scenarios anyway?