Plants can not only divert nutrients. They can even send these. There has been an experiment where saplings were wrapped in foil to cut them off from the atmosphere, while surrounding trees were wrapped and "fed" with radioactive marked molecules. Some of the marked molecules ended up in the sapling. The results were published in Nature, titled "Net transfer of carbon between ectomycorrhizal tree species in the field"
The Last of Us is a video game that portrays a fictional world in which a fungal infection has caused the collapse of human civilization. While the game takes some creative liberties with the science of fungal infections, it does draw on real-world scientific concepts and research to create its fictional universe. In the game, the fungal infection is caused by a fictional fungus called Cordyceps brain infection, which is based on a real-world fungus called Cordyceps. In reality, Cordyceps is a parasitic fungus that infects insects and other arthropods, taking over their nervous systems and using them to spread its spores. The game's fictional version of the fungus takes this concept and applies it to humans, resulting in a post-apocalyptic scenario in which infected humans have lost their cognitive functions and become aggressive. While the game takes some liberties with the science, it does accurately portray the concept of fungal infections and how they can affect the nervous system. The game's depiction of the effects of the fungus on the human body, including the growth of fungal structures in and around the brain, is also based on real-world science. However, it is important to note that the game is a work of fiction, and some of the details of the infection and its effects are not entirely accurate or plausible. In reality, fungal infections do not typically cause such extreme changes in behavior or physical transformation in humans. Nonetheless, The Last of Us does a good job of using real-world science to create a plausible and immersive fictional universe. - ChatGPT
OMG KYLE! Thank you for mentioning that “in the biz” less spores means less particle effects. I’m not a VFX artist/animator myself but working in the animation industry, that was my first reaction upon hearing about the change from spores to mycelium - “less budget for particle effects”. 😂😊
maybe but particle effects, especially something relatively simple like spores aren’t that expensive; it might be creatively kinda dead ended from a vfx stand point, but I don’t see how it would cost more… they might have to contract out to 1 less party, so in that sense it would make workflow easier
@@hellfish2309 Seems like the all-around better choice, the point of a tv-show is to "show" you things and I imagine they don't help there either. Like in a video game generally obscuring vision is great for atmosphere but easier, cheaper, safer, more fun for the artists, and better for the shot? honestly sounds like the right call.
@@TheFunwichHorror: Yeah, but if that's the downside, you'll get thousands of balding people just throwing themselves at the infected, screaming things like "HAIR! FINALLY HAIR!!", "TAKE ME, YOU GOLDEN-LOCKED GODS!!!", and "FUCK ROGAINE!!!"
Fun fact: Cordyceps infecting an ant doesn't touch the ant's brain, until it explodes out of the little dude's head. It's entirely possible the ant is completely aware (to the extent an ant is "aware", blah blah blah) the whole time while the cordyceps controls its muscles and mandibles like some horrible marionette.
I did not need to know this... Definitely not because that is now a horrible fear of mine. The voice in my head definitely isn't asking if I'm actually in control right now
I heard they removed the spores partially because it didn't make sense that there were clearly delineated areas where spores were no problem at all and where they were immediate death. Realistically, you'd breathe in a few spores much further away.
It would've been an easy fix i believe. Having LARGE clusters of spores be visible. Sorta like dust falling. But in reality its trillions of them. And outside, like only a few thousand that aren't visible. So the characters would have to breathe in trillions of them at once in order to get infected by it. But if they breathe in a few spores the fungus dies almost immediately cause it wasn't enough to infect the human body. Something like that could've fixed spores.
@@Realityoftenhurts apparently the fungus infected people through the quantity of food infected with the fungus consumed (according to joel in ep3 aka the gay sex episode)
@@Realityoftenhurts If just eating spores or mycelium started the spread I don't think it's believable that it takes trillions of spores to become infected. So removing the spores was a good call.
So they actually talked about why they moved from spores. You're partially right in that they didn't want their cast masked up the entire show. But they also said that they felt that having the spores, at least how they behaved in the game, would stretch the suspension of disbelief a little too far. Spores in the game are VERY locational and don't stick to anything... you need to put on a mask to enter a room with spores, but can immediately take the mask off when you leave said room and the spores aren't on your clothes or anything. They didn't think that folks would buy the idea that spores wouldn't just go everywhere. I am curious to see how this translates into S2 because while I don't think it's critical, the topic of having to be masked up around spores came up as a fairly sizable story moment a couple times in Part II.
oh damn thats right. That scene/part was brutal. I wonder how they'll change that one. Maybe they'll make it so that bloaters throw spore bombs at you and that's one of the things they find in that hospital basement.
From a gardener’s viewpoint, I love seeing mycelia when planting new things. I know it’s a healthy soil system when I see it. I’ve also seen mycorrhizae fertilizers that include fungal spores that encourage that plant-fungi relationship.
do you think they talk about you as some sort of god? a strange bipedal giant that rips the soil and puts more nutrients and seeds as if summoned by your own will, then put the soil together and walk away without saying a word in their language...
Thing is, most people dont understand that usually the changes are made because it either doesn't work in TV/movie format because it requires too much screentime to explain/set-up or because its too expensive to shoot, or a host of other perfectly valid reasons. I only take issue with changes that were made just for the sake of it and not because of the constraints of reality or money.
Plus the director explained that from his experience directing Chernobyl, filming with gas masks is difficult, and not something we would want to see all the time.
Besides that, how it was portrayed in the games was not really logical. There are many cutscenes, where they rip off the mask immeadeately after leaving a spore infested zone, they also never disinfect their clothes (Joels flannel shirt must be soaked with spores). They didn't really take PPE seriously :D
@@klulu-kun hour episode of them boiling water, washing their clothes, waiting for it to dry, getting dressed only to repeat the second they bump into infected again. 🤣 Great tv.
As somebody that grew mushrooms to supplement income during college, I really have learned that fungus is damn near magical if you don't understand what it's doing and more importantly, WHY. Then, once you understand more about the whys and hows, you become even more puzzled and intrigued. Then you fall down the bottomless pit that is mycology.
@@kommandantgalileo Meant 'not connecting' in this case. Like... I don't know how to comprehend that. It's like saying no ones capable of connecting with Din Djarin until he takes his helmet off.
I think it shows just how flexible nature can be in order to survive. That... as well as the hundreds of millions of years these species have been working together. Some adaptations are hilarious, but you can understand why they work. I think you used the perfect word to describe it: "system". We're part of an amazing, terrifying, living network.
The relationship between mycorrhizae and mycorrhizal plants is an example of a mutualism. All mutualisms are symbioses but not all symbioses are mutualisms. I noticed during the show that they were shying away from the spore idea. I'm glad you caught that even more-so than me! Fungal spores don't disperse far on their own, usually only a few feet if that, but any mature fruiting body that a human could come into contact with would be infectious (but in Ellie's case not necessarily able to cause disease). It makes sense that once a fungus has caused a disease (a symptomatic reaction) it is incredibly hard to get rid of because of the cellular similarities between humans and fungi. We thrive within similar temperature and moisture spectrums and most antimicrobial drugs/agents would also hurt the human host just as much as the fungus acting as a parasite (which is also a type of symbiosis!) Getting over the human immune system in the first place is the biggest "plot gap" in The Last of Us. Another potential plot goof is that the pathogen can survive on grain/plants/a very different host long enough to be used as a dispersal mechanism but doesn't seem to have a resting spore stage. Resting spores are incredibly advantageous but if these existed for this pathogen then all bodies, regardless of age/moisture, would have the potential to be infectious. Spores have very small energy reserves, unlike plants with seeds c: -A crusty Forest Health graduate
"that would be cool and accurate--the best kind of cool" lol great line I hope you've seen the Fantastic Fungi documentary. Seems like it would really be up your alley
@@Napoleonic_S there's a Wing Commander movie, written and directed by the dude's who is currently the CEO/lead designer for the company making Star Citizen
This was really interesting! I knew about plants and fungus communicating but I didn't know that it was so extensive. Also Craig Mazin has done really great work recently with Chernobyl and Idk how much input he has on it but Mythic Quest is also really good. Gives me hope for the Borderlands movie.
I'm not going to diss the movie that gave use such a great line as "For you, the day Bison graced your village was the most important day in your life, but for me? It was Tuesday."
Kyle, you totally nailed it with the observation about masks at the end. Craig Mazin, one of the showrunners for TLOU also made HBO's Chernobyl series. In that show, characters wore masks and it made some aspects of filming difficult. This was a large part of the reason for removing spores from the show.
The main reason was the mask as one of the producers or directors was apart of the Chernobyl series and commented on how hard it was to show emotions in masks.
While watching a full TLoU 2 stream I had a great talk with another viewer about mycology, fungal immunology, consciousness as an emergent property, and so much more. It was a lot of fun
It gets a lot of flack, but I think that's mostly because it used a "modern soldiers get dumped into the Monster Hunter verse and have to escape" framing device. It's fun, the monster depictions are pretty good, and it ultimately shows how badass the hunters are and why their weapons are the way to go.
@@westrim i would have thought it got a lot of flak for glaring vfx problems. The only things that looked good in that movie were the monsters. And they only looked good when against the cg background. The lighting was terrible, the colors for the physical set were off, and the character design looked like okay cosplay. The plot was lacking but not really that bad, and the acting was probably what you'd expect for the script. The rest of the movie looked like an unresolved conflict.
It's made by the same director and team as the awful Resident Evil adaptations, so if you've seen those you might be able to go in with better expectations.
Omg that scene that you had as your background just reminded me of the scene when the horse was killed. I can't remember if it was in 1 or 2 at this point I played so long ago
Fungi and mushrooms have always been so fascinating to me. There's so many different kinds out there and also mycelium that can apparently make you trip balls. I want to know more about it now.
10:21 Also also having spores all over the screen will throw the compression into whack, like watching a screen filled with snow particles or confetti. Tom Scott did a great video about it :)
While I am happy with the addition of the mycelium, I really appreciated the unique take on the transmission method the game had and its similarity to the closest real world examples. I would have liked both. But still the show is amazing.
I don’t think cordyceps interacts with the mycelia though. It mainly spreads via spores and ants which are mobile and therefore cannot take root in the ground.
I think that any adaptation of a pre-existing work should have some changes from the source material, otherwise you're just selling people something they already have. For example, as much as I don't care for the Halo show, I do agree that it shouldn't have been bound by the games. I wish they had actually committed to that idea and instead told stories set in the Halo universe, but following characters and scenarios we never saw before; like following a team of ODST's trying to escape a planet before it's glassed, or the story of a civilian who witnesses the flood infestation on Earth. I don't think it should have had anything to do with the Master Chief because the games already tell his story, and I certainly don't think it should have been a soulless, generic, unimaginative, made by committee cash grab. Adaptations need to be made by people who are familiar with, and are passionate about the source material, and any changes made need to be made because doing so would make for a better story, and not because they could "attract a wider audience".
@rabidrabids5348: I've been saying for years now that Star Trek needs a show about a small space trader dealing with the day-to-day ramifications of that 'verse's politics. How many spacelanes are affected by the Neutral Zone? How does the DS-9 wormhole affect the price of goods and the cost of fuel? How much trade happens between the Alpha and Delta Quadrants?
@@rabidrabids5348: Post-capitalist, post-scarcity, yes; but that doesn't mean that EVERY society in the 'verse is, and trade still needs to happen, as does the transport of goods and people. Remember, not everything can be made in a replicator.
Mycology is super interesting. I started growing mushrooms at home and it's so cheap and easy and educational. Managed to get my son interested in it since this show got popular. I grow cordyceps and a number of other edible mushrooms. Medicinal ones can also be grown just as easily, hint hint.
Trees communicate with each other. That's amazing. It makes sense that anything living thing that learns to thrive will find a means to communicate, but it is always awesome to learn the many ways that nature has found to make this happen.
Street Fighter is a MASTERPIECE, a Belgian playing an American and doing NOTHING about his accent? Raul Julia shouting GAME OVER?! The TUESDAY Line!?!?! MASTERPIECE I say!!!!
I don't appreciate the Bill change, I like how Frank and Bill were in the game and also the interaction with Bill and Ellie is something we wont get to see :( I was totally on board with the episode until Frank just got sick and then Bill did the thing instead of what actually happened in the game :/
I'm on the fence, while I loved the interaction with Ellie and Bill in the game and would've loved to see it, they did an amazing job with the backstory and I love nick offerman as an actor and he killed it.
Both were good: from an adaptation standpoint it’s risky to keep the non-interactive audience on board for Henry and Sam’s demise if we had left Bill rotting in his town scorned by Frank, stacking misery on misery… might as well leave them on a less horrible note while Joel learning the same lesson from Bill as he did in the game
I think deemphasizing spores was smart. That UV vision from the game would get old fast for television (though I did think they were gonna do it in the 2nd episode with the flashlights covered in UV lenses).
As messed up as Street Fighter is for a movie based on a video game, Raul Julia makes it a classic to watch. You could remove everything else, but Raul Julia and that would make for a fun watch. For you, the day Bison graced your village was the most important day of your life. But for me, it was Tuesday. There was also this thing about the fact that he adlibbed most of his lines.
His performance is the one thing that saved the movie. He knew how trash and shite the script was, so instead of playing the character straight, he instead chews the scenery like he was starved for weeks and hams it up to the point that it loops back to awesome. Instead of this being a black mark for being his final film role, his performance as M. Bison instead elevated it to something that fans fondly remember.
Fungi are absolutely amazing. I got into mycology in high school. Ever since I don’t see fungi the same. Everywhere you look there is a fungi somewhere.
After ranging on a century of live-adaptation besmirching the source material, it's genuinely baffling how it's not only ramped up in recent decades but become flagrantly more obscene in the "creative" liberties taken in production/writing/directing. It's not like the public response has ever been good for these flops, but they just. keep. being. made. I have yet to play the games or watch the series, but I absolutely appreciate the efforts made in both, seeing enough of them to appreciate the quality and critical acclaim. So this is good. We need so much more like this.
Perhaps plants used to have a better ability to harvest minerals from the ground, but lost it over time due to this symbiotic relationship, like how farm crops lose their ability to attract insects to defend them (forget the term for this function)
In the podcast for episode 5 the show's creator/game's writer confirmed that yes, the person remains trapped in their body for perhaps a week or so. They described it like an acute state of confusion, almost like a really bad drug trip. You'll see yourself doing these things and know you're maybe hurting someone that you love, but you can't stop yourself. After enough time though sufficient areas of the brain are destroyed and the person becomes non-sapient.
You're absolutely correct on spore VFX in Hollywood. Generally it's obscenely more expensive to produce good spore effects compared to what was shown in the series; but, it's also in part that the VFX industry is severely underpaid and disrespected thanks to many directors such as on the Life of Pi and The Red Assassin, both fervent advocates that VFX should be even cheaper, and have popularized refusal of payment for VFX work done in China, which has unfortunately killed off a few studios, and driven talent out of the VFX industry to find work in other fields to afford rent. Though as for the Last of Us, no matter how much I prefer the spore interpretation of the infection found in the game...the mycelium take on the infection affords so much more creative setups for various sequences, as there's more freedom in representing the infection visually along with the horrors of being infected, which the spores can't capture in the same way.
I believe they said that they specifically changed away from spores because the director did a previous work with actors in hazmat suits and they found it hard to make viewers feel fear because they couldn't read the actors fascial expressions or body language very well because of the suits. As such they chose to change the vector of transmission for the show to allow the actors to better express themselves and add tension to the scenes.
I agree I like the communication for a mile thing. I think I read about a giant fungus network that spanned multiple square miles underground. Final boss material?
that “adaptation honoring source” hit hard when watching Maze Runner: Death Cure went from manmade version of basically human rabies/a bit of zombie attributes, to a full-on zombie related thing
The only problem I had is how fast the underground network communicates. IRL, this communication is limited to feet/hr. Trees don't need to communicate faster than than.
TLOU does get one thing wrong about Cordyceps. The fungus doesn't invade the brain it takes control of the body exclusively through puppeteering the musculoskeletal system. It's an additional horrific aspect of Cordyceps that I wish the game and show would've taken advantage of. Now not only would being infected mean you become a fungal zombie but your perfectly healthy mind would be imprisoned inside that zombie able to see, hear and feel everything that's going on but unable to do anything about it. A very, "I have no mouth but I must scream," type of horror to be sure.
1:35 so like its not more spores growing the spore is the start of it, the "seed" of the mushroom but once theyve formed hyphae they keep expanding out. Pretty incredible topic either way! but i had to point it out!
The Fungus in the game does eventually grow mushrooms, on the clickers and bloaters. Then once the 'zombie' can't really support the Fungus anymore it stops controlling the body somewhere and starts expanding outward.
there is also more academic knowledge about Cordecyps now than existed when TLOU was first made, such as the fungus leaving the brain more or less untouched as it takes over the rest of a host's nervous system.
Fun fact, that cut grass smell is really an alert to predators that prey on things that eat the grass. That’s why birds and wasps and such show up after.
So Simard theorized that fungi form a symbiotic, networked intelligence throughout an entire forest. A network which serves to share memories among plants, and which can manipulate local wildlife to protect the trees when threatened by invasive species. So basically Eywa.
