When viewers lastly did get to see the debut of the online game adaptation, many couldn’t assist however marvel if the parasitic fungus that takes over people and transforms them into mutant zombie-like creatures has any foundation in actuality.
“It’s actual,” showrunner Craig Mazin informed The Hollywood Reporter. “There are some outstanding documentaries you could watch which might be fairly terrifying.”
He’s referring to footage exhibiting how the cordyceps fungus can primarily take over bugs, equivalent to ants.
A 2019 report in Nationwide Geographic particulars how the fungus “infects a foraging ant by spores that connect and penetrate the exoskeleton and slowly takes over its conduct.”
It continues: “Because the an infection advances, the enthralled ant is compelled to depart its nest for a extra humid microclimate that’s favorable to the fungus’s progress. The ant is compelled to descend to a vantage level about 10 inches off the bottom, sink its jaws right into a leaf vein on the north facet of a plant, and look forward to loss of life.”
However don’t head out to your survival bunker but.
“From a purely scientific perspective, would they do precisely to us what they do to ants? I don’t suppose so,” Mazin informed The Hollywood Reporter. “I doubt it.”
Within the present, local weather change causes the fungus to mutate to contaminate people. In actuality, The Washington Put up factors out that people aren’t solely already uncovered to many variations of the fungus, however that some folks actively search it out.
In actual fact, it’s present in well being dietary supplements.
“The fungus seems to carry some advantages for people,” the newspaper reported, including that the Memorial Sloan Kettering web site lists “improved energy and stamina, higher kidney perform and immune system boosts” as potential advantages.
The location cautions readers to talk to a health care provider earlier than attempting it.
