Interesting thought. The interviewer became noticeably frightened when he mentioned the world getting warmer, he must have known about the future of climate change and understood how realistic it was.
And this made me think, what if I can genetically engineer these cordyceps or any other suitable fungi to be able to make a human into zombies but would only target specific race type. Make it a weapon a weapon to wipe out a country that tries to invade my country now
Thankfully there’s many more reasons why this scenario couldn’t happen. Fungi that control hosts like cordyceps only do so in insects due to their far simpler immune system. The oldest cordyceps fossil is 40 million years old, and it’s probably been around for much longer. And in all that time it’s been just happy to stay in its lane through all the climatic changes, never jumping to vertebrates. It’s not going to jump to humans. Our immune system would hit it with a steel chair.
Seems unrealistic for a comedy host to completely give up the act and become scared just because the scientist told him something hypothetical. Its like if someone came on to Conan and told him about microplastics or something and instead of making a joke he just ends the segment out of fear Kind of a dumb scene imo
You can clearly see the host slowly realizing the horrific fact of the fungus' nature if it were to evolve, I honestly find it funny and scary "Ah Shit" truly relatable
The other scientist's silence speaks volume: he was voicing his disagreement earlier, but remained quiet as Dr. Neuman theorizes the idea of fungal evolution and its consequences. He knows the man's right.
And penicillin is derived not from fungus if my memory serves but mold.. bread type mold. They may belong within the kingdom Fungi, but it is different than a mushroom. Egyptians after battle used moldy bread on wounds.
I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if there was “gain of function” research being conducted in a lab in Asia right now trying to make this happen. Funded by bill gates
Something that always irked me was that no one brought up the evolutionary argument that there is NO REASON for this fungus to make a jump from ants to humans. Nor about how the thing it makes the ants do is simply to climb up high and hold on to something. Setting aside the VASTLY more complex immune system mammals possess making fungal pathogens rare, why would it want humans? The strategy with ants suits its evolutionary niche very well, and fungi don’t possess the “throw every mutation at the wall and see what sticks” strategy that viruses take on. So I guess if this fungus ever made the leap we’d have an epidemic of people climbing up on buildings and then just dying up there.
Well actually this is partly true but still not plausible to happen. Firstly, Fungi has been evolved for million years to actually adapt to ant's circulatory system and capable of travelling to it's brain. Secondly human, otherwise, have a sophisticated nerve system which fungi cant take control over it. Furthermore, our ancients had an immune system that prevent 98% of Fungi spores :))
I think the reason why it's so scary in a way is because it's realistic there are fungus that control ants. And if there was to be a zomb ie outbreak out there this will be the one I think it will happen if it ever does happen and also scientists say that someday our species will be wiped out just like the dinosaurs it's just a question of when and how..
You know the script is good when they only talking about posibilities, no images or videos just pure talking. But you can imagine and feel the outcome of the topic and you get scared out of it :)
I absolutely love the deliverance of "what if, for instance, the world were to get slightly warmer?". The audience there gets silent, yes, but us... we actually live on that future, with people warning about global warming every left and right. Suddenly he's talking about our time and it somehow gives an itch that it's hard to look over at that moment.
the writers for this scene and the people responsible are amazing at their job. by far the coolest explanation for a zombie apocalypse that I have ever seen
