In countless movies, series, or games, people encounter zombies. But how realistic is it that fungi could infect us like in The Last of Us?
Zombies are ubiquitous in pop culture. Whether in The Walking Dead, 28 Days Later, or the classics by zombie master George R. Romero, the undead are a popular threat.
In The Last of Us, the surviving humans must also deal with them. This raises the question of how realistic the infection by fungi and the subsequent transformation are. An astrophysicist and an astronomer have provided a clear answer.
Fungi prefer it cool
What do the two say? Neil deGrasse Tyson is an astrophysicist, and his colleague Charles Liu is an astronomer. Both discussed the undead in a conversation on the YouTube channel StarTalk Plus.
Initially, they addressed the fascination that zombies have for humans. “Things that do not live fascinate us,” explains Charles Liu.
When talking about fungi, one must consider that they represent a separate kingdom that exists alongside that of animals and plants. Fungi are a vast and complex topic.
In response to the question of whether they could infest humans and turn them into zombies, the scientists gave a clear answer: No, that would not work.
The reason is simple: We humans are warm-blooded; such fungi infest and transform only cold-blooded creatures. In other words, our human bodies are too hot for the fungi. Therefore, an infection and transformation would not be possible.
However, the situation is different when considering the circumstances of the world of The Last of Us. There, the Cordyceps fungus wreaks havoc, enabled by its evolution due to climate change, which allows it to infest warm-blooded creatures.
If a similar fungal evolution were to occur in reality, humans could theoretically also be infested in the future. Because fungi infesting other life forms, such as plants, happens almost constantly, according to the scientists. The Cordyceps used in The Last of Us, for example, causes ants to turn into zombies, as reported by Geo.
At the end of their explanations, Neil deGrasse Tyson and Charles Liu emphasize that fungi are not evil; they reproduce for natural reasons. In contrast, humans become monsters in the face of a threatening scenario – the gruesome stories from The Last of Us have proven that. Read more about the Cordyceps fungi on MeinMMO: These real fungi are behind the epidemic in The Last of Us
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