The infection from HBO’s The Last of Us is actually based on a real parasitic fungus. This fungus turns insects into zombies. The creators of the game and the show were inspired by zombie carpenter ants. WIRED spoke with Dr. Charissa de Bekker to talk about the real fungus that inspired the show’s infected, and how the show’s zombies parallel these real-life ants.
Director: Lisandro Perez-Rey
Editor: Ron Douglas
Expert: Dr. Charissa de Bekker
Line Producer: Joseph Buscemi
Associate Producer: Brandon White
Production Manager: Eric Martinez
Production Coordinator: Fernando Davila
Post Production Supervisor: Alexa Deutsch
Post Production Coordinator: Ian Bryant
Supervising Editor: Doug Larsen
Assistant Editors: Andy Morell, Paul Tael
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Fun fact: most cat owners have the toxoplasma gondii parasite (yes it does survive in human bodies)
She is clever and pretty!"
well, we are no less than animals and let's not think we are immune to such things because covid was one such example so anything is possible.
Lost all respect for this video when you called it "HBO's The Last of Us" it's not theirs, it's Naughty Dog's The Last of Us. Clowns
They aren’t zombies
Except in the show there are no spores, so the fruiting bodies make no sense. I'm enjoying the show but this has been bothering me since the first scene Joel & Tess went into a room with a now fully consumed infected, there are fruiting bodies everywhere & they treat it like nothing. This is when I knew something was wrong, I looked it up & what do you know confirmed no spores. It makes no sense
Ayo WWIII weapon is wild
We need to keep this scientist well funded and protected. I have a feeling we're going to need her in the years to come!
This is so gross, it's creeping me out. But it's fascinating.
should've got @zefrank for the presenter voiceover tbh.
Telling this like if this news was something new.
Hi Dr. Charissa ❤
Humans can get toxoplasmosis
Before Covid became real a similar movie was realised not sure why are they giving people ideas
Our obsession with zombies makes a Zombie apocalypses likely. The universe has a way of turning imagination into reality.
Biology is pretty messed up
The fact that the fungus in the game was rooted in reality made it so much more intriguing while playing. The show is now adding a rich new depth to the story showing how it spread, and giving a loose explanation as to why it happened. Excited to see what else they add in the coming episodes.
She looks like Debra Morgan
Here's the thing people have very good immune systems compared to insects, people have been eating those insects zombie fungus for health benefits for thousands of years
hope that the pandemic events in The Last Of Us will never happen in real life. The world has been living "side by side" with the Covid-19 pandemic for 3 years
🙏🏻🥺
God bless us
Yeah the zombies who are infected with a virus are getting old, TLOU zombies however are unique because zombies who are infected by a fungus is a lot harder to kill because of its bio-mass and the longer the fungus grows in the body of a person, the harder it is to destroy
So a culture that shows up, does something to alter the thinking of a host, and makes them do things against their will. Where have I heard this before?
1:05 dont date cougars and dont do kinky skat play
oh no we are all scared…
Holy moly this made me itchy
"Who would be we without our parasites…"
Cordyceps are actually very healthy to humans.
people are thinking that these can't be real, but the program gain of funkction could made out a virus like that, like they did with other animal viruses, that can now attack even a human body. relly a nice program to destroy a humanity.
I ALREADY KNOW ALL OF THESE
How does they smell like
I wonder if this can actually happen in real life since its well real lol
Dude I stopped eating things with cordycep immediately after watching TLOU! 😅