12 ms·

“Zombie cicadas” infected with mind-controlling fungus return to West Virginia

161 points by wglb 6y ago

tyingq 6y ago
Similar parasitic fungus that "zombifies" ants: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ophiocordyceps_unilateralis https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ophiocordyceps_unilateralis A similar storyline is also featured in the TV show Fortitude. The first two seasons are on Amazon Prime, but I haven't been able to find the third season in the US, despite it being a couple of years old now.
- vore 6y ago
  What's really interesting about O. unilateralis is that it doesn't take over the host's brain, and instead controls the muscles directly: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2019/04/cordyceps-zombie-fungus-takes-over-ants/ https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2019/04/cordyceps... Using a type of fluorescent microscopy, researchers from Pennsylvania State University watched fungal colonization in ants from the gaster, the rear end of the abdomen, to the head—and found no trace of fungal cells in the brain. They coupled that information with computer algorithms to chart the movement of fungi as they formed a sort of tubular scaffolding within and around ants’ muscle bundles. This suggests the fungus casts its mind control through bioactive compounds that interfere with the ant’s nervous system and control hosts directly at the muscles, de Bekker says.
  - saberdancer 6y ago
    How would the fungus control the ant where he goes, attaching to a major vein on the underside of a leaf seems to either imply that the ant (brain) is affected to make the ant move to that location, or that fungus is capable of interpreting environment which seems quite unlikely. I find it far more likely that the full effect is quite complex, perhaps the fungus is able to create chemical "urges" in the ant which force him to leave the colony and go for undersides of the leaves, only to overwhelm the ant completely by controlling the muscles directly once it is in position to lock his mandibles on the leave until death.
    - vmception 6y ago
      Yeah I really wonder about the possibilities, like are there a bunch more infected ants that never make it to the underside of the leaf or branch? Or is this fungi and symbiotic relationship really that .... intelligent ... in some capacity?
  - muzani 6y ago
    That's a whole new level of horror, where your body does things and starts decaying and your brain can't control it.
odomojuli 6y ago
Interesting. I wonder how the fungus adapted to target cicadas which famously spawn only in prime years such as 17 or 19 to avoid overlap with their predators.
- monadic2 6y ago
  Choose the non-teleolgical version: what changes did the fungus or cicada mutate that allowed this integration of lifecycles?
  - odomojuli 6y ago
    Good point. I guess you'd have to throw out the assumption they're not vulnerable during that time since they spend the bulk of their lifespan in the fungal domain: underground.
- GoblinSlayer 6y ago
  It's a parasite, not a predator. They can't live independently.
tomasreimers 6y ago
The mind-controlling--probably a better phrase for them is "behavior altering"--class of parasites are fascinating from an academic sense... and nightmare fuel from a day-to-day sense. Two additional cases which I remember studying in school are: (1) A parasitic worm which causes snails to climb to clearly visible positions so that birds can eat them. These snails are usually avoidant of those positions, and so this is clear behavior alteration. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkiL-v4X8w8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkiL-v4X8w8) (2) A parasitic fungus which takes over ants, causing them to climb up high and then bite (!!! this means it can affect specific muscle movements) into a plant, before bursting from the body and spreading spores (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vijGdWn5-h8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vijGdWn5-h8, apologies for the mildly dramatic nat-geo video) And for a good piece of sci-fi on the first-person experience of seeing others rapidly/inexplicably change behavior, check out [The Screwfly Solution](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Screwfly_Solution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Screwfly_Solution). (It's a good read intended as commentary on patriarchy, and it also uses a behavior altering piece of biology as a key plot device.) There is a part of me that wonders if there are things (viruses/bacteria/funguses) which effect human behavior. And if in 100/1000s of years into the future we'll look back and realize that some subset of maladaptive personality traits and/or mood disorders aren't something that simply "happen" to someone, but are instead explained by biology/chemistry we didn't have a good understanding of. The same way we now look at ancient Rome and say "yeah, their use of lead pipes definitely had some effect on their psychology". Then again, there is something deeply human to say "nah, we are fully in control of our psychology. These things only happen in simpler animals, and our more-complicated biology means this could NEVER happen to us".
- sleepyshift 6y ago
  "This Is Your Brain on Parasites" is a fantastic book on this - https://www.amazon.co.uk/This-Your-Brain-Parasites-Manipulate/dp/0544947258/ref=sr_1_1 https://www.amazon.co.uk/This-Your-Brain-Parasites-Manipulat...
- majkinetor 6y ago
  > There is a part of me that wonders if there are things (viruses/bacteria/funguses) which effect human behavior. Ofc there are. For one, its well known that certain worms can affect kids in such way that they become hyperactive.
hirundo 6y ago
Humans certainly get infected with mind-controlling memes. How sure are we that there aren't fungal/bacterial/viral sources of change to human behavior? Maybe an infection could make us more peaceful or warlike, authoritarian or laissez-faire, pious or agnostic, obedient or obstinate. Political and religious movements sure seem to spread like biological infections. I wonder if there are epidemiological measures that could tell the difference. Velocity of spread could be discriminator, but you'd have to test that on populations that are culturally but not physically isolated and visa versa, which is a tall order.
- Johnjonjoan 6y ago
  Like toxaplasmosis? We don't really like entertaining these things because our identities are very attatched to the idea of free will.
  - imtringued 6y ago
    There is no meaningful difference between a world with free will and a fully deterministic world. You're still going to make the same decisions and live the same life in either world. If you get shot, you die, even with free will. If you lose your legs, you'll be trapped in a wheelchair, even with free will. If you get infected by a zombie disease, you'll become a zombie, even with free will. Free will simply doesn't buy you anything. You can still keep your identity without it.
    - Johnjonjoan 6y ago
      Without free will you've never made a decision. Try telling anyone they didn't decide what they do or like or wear and you'll see that (for now) identity is tightly tied to free will in most peoples minds.
  - aurelianito 6y ago
    Toxoplasmosis is known to promote risky behavior in infected people.
- deleted 6y ago
dsun179 6y ago
Scrolljacking, history hacking, background ads play with sound. What a shit of a website.
- cosarara 6y ago
  And both a cookie warning with no easy privacy option (yes vs open settings) and an offer to install their app.
- marmshallow 6y ago
  I agree it's a shit website, but I loaded it on Chrome with uBlock Origin and I don't have scrolljacking (scrolling seems fine), history hacking (my back button works as expected), and no background ads at all.
  - quicklime 6y ago
    Running this with stock standard Firefox (and its standard tracking protections) and the site works well for me too. The state of the web today reminds me a lot of the early '00s when popups were everywhere, and the most popular browser didn't block them by default. Browsing news sites with vanilla Chrome today is awful.
- sushshshsh 6y ago
  How dare you insult the pinnacle of citizen journalism that is CBS, who surely only have the public good at heart in their intentions...
totalZero 6y ago
I feel kind of sad for these cicadas. Imagine spending 17 years preparing in the darkness for your big cicada debut, only to have your body and behavior taken over by a destructive fungus.
mirimir 6y ago
> But, there's no need to be concerned about being infected by the zombies. Unlike murder hornets or mosquitoes, these zombie cicadas are generally harmless to humans, researchers said. I wonder if they're a workable source of psilocybin.
- dillonmckay 6y ago
  Cicada tea or a pizza topping?
  - mirimir 6y ago
    I have eaten dried grasshoppers with beer. And actually, it's less gross than pork rinds ;)
dillonmckay 6y ago
OK, two questions: Can you make some kind of cicada tea with the psilocybin? Could this have occurred in 1918 and caused human hallucinations because of contamination?
distant_hat 6y ago
I wonder if this is the reason why some mushrooms (which are fungi), such as psylocybes, have such strong mental effects on humans. Shared common pathways from hundreds of millenia old except that in us the effects are limited and dont cause us to climb on a tree and get eaten by a leopard.

161 points by wglb 6y ago

Similar parasitic fungus that "zombifies" ants: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ophiocordyceps_unilateralis https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ophiocordyceps_unilateralis A similar storyline is also featured in the TV show Fortitude. The first two seasons are on Amazon Prime, but I haven't been able to find the third season in the US, despite it being a couple of years old now.

vore 6y ago
What's really interesting about O. unilateralis is that it doesn't take over the host's brain, and instead controls the muscles directly: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2019/04/cordyceps-zombie-fungus-takes-over-ants/ https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2019/04/cordyceps... Using a type of fluorescent microscopy, researchers from Pennsylvania State University watched fungal colonization in ants from the gaster, the rear end of the abdomen, to the head—and found no trace of fungal cells in the brain. They coupled that information with computer algorithms to chart the movement of fungi as they formed a sort of tubular scaffolding within and around ants’ muscle bundles. This suggests the fungus casts its mind control through bioactive compounds that interfere with the ant’s nervous system and control hosts directly at the muscles, de Bekker says.
- saberdancer 6y ago
  How would the fungus control the ant where he goes, attaching to a major vein on the underside of a leaf seems to either imply that the ant (brain) is affected to make the ant move to that location, or that fungus is capable of interpreting environment which seems quite unlikely. I find it far more likely that the full effect is quite complex, perhaps the fungus is able to create chemical "urges" in the ant which force him to leave the colony and go for undersides of the leaves, only to overwhelm the ant completely by controlling the muscles directly once it is in position to lock his mandibles on the leave until death.
  - vmception 6y ago
    Yeah I really wonder about the possibilities, like are there a bunch more infected ants that never make it to the underside of the leaf or branch? Or is this fungi and symbiotic relationship really that .... intelligent ... in some capacity?
- muzani 6y ago
  That's a whole new level of horror, where your body does things and starts decaying and your brain can't control it.

odomojuli 6y ago

Interesting. I wonder how the fungus adapted to target cicadas which famously spawn only in prime years such as 17 or 19 to avoid overlap with their predators.

monadic2 6y ago
Choose the non-teleolgical version: what changes did the fungus or cicada mutate that allowed this integration of lifecycles?
- odomojuli 6y ago
  Good point. I guess you'd have to throw out the assumption they're not vulnerable during that time since they spend the bulk of their lifespan in the fungal domain: underground.
GoblinSlayer 6y ago
It's a parasite, not a predator. They can't live independently.

tomasreimers 6y ago

The mind-controlling--probably a better phrase for them is "behavior altering"--class of parasites are fascinating from an academic sense... and nightmare fuel from a day-to-day sense. Two additional cases which I remember studying in school are: (1) A parasitic worm which causes snails to climb to clearly visible positions so that birds can eat them. These snails are usually avoidant of those positions, and so this is clear behavior alteration. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkiL-v4X8w8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkiL-v4X8w8) (2) A parasitic fungus which takes over ants, causing them to climb up high and then bite (!!! this means it can affect specific muscle movements) into a plant, before bursting from the body and spreading spores (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vijGdWn5-h8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vijGdWn5-h8, apologies for the mildly dramatic nat-geo video) And for a good piece of sci-fi on the first-person experience of seeing others rapidly/inexplicably change behavior, check out [The Screwfly Solution](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Screwfly_Solution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Screwfly_Solution). (It's a good read intended as commentary on patriarchy, and it also uses a behavior altering piece of biology as a key plot device.) There is a part of me that wonders if there are things (viruses/bacteria/funguses) which effect human behavior. And if in 100/1000s of years into the future we'll look back and realize that some subset of maladaptive personality traits and/or mood disorders aren't something that simply "happen" to someone, but are instead explained by biology/chemistry we didn't have a good understanding of. The same way we now look at ancient Rome and say "yeah, their use of lead pipes definitely had some effect on their psychology". Then again, there is something deeply human to say "nah, we are fully in control of our psychology. These things only happen in simpler animals, and our more-complicated biology means this could NEVER happen to us".

sleepyshift 6y ago
"This Is Your Brain on Parasites" is a fantastic book on this - https://www.amazon.co.uk/This-Your-Brain-Parasites-Manipulate/dp/0544947258/ref=sr_1_1 https://www.amazon.co.uk/This-Your-Brain-Parasites-Manipulat...
majkinetor 6y ago
> There is a part of me that wonders if there are things (viruses/bacteria/funguses) which effect human behavior. Ofc there are. For one, its well known that certain worms can affect kids in such way that they become hyperactive.

hirundo 6y ago

Humans certainly get infected with mind-controlling memes. How sure are we that there aren't fungal/bacterial/viral sources of change to human behavior? Maybe an infection could make us more peaceful or warlike, authoritarian or laissez-faire, pious or agnostic, obedient or obstinate. Political and religious movements sure seem to spread like biological infections. I wonder if there are epidemiological measures that could tell the difference. Velocity of spread could be discriminator, but you'd have to test that on populations that are culturally but not physically isolated and visa versa, which is a tall order.

Johnjonjoan 6y ago
Like toxaplasmosis? We don't really like entertaining these things because our identities are very attatched to the idea of free will.
- imtringued 6y ago
  There is no meaningful difference between a world with free will and a fully deterministic world. You're still going to make the same decisions and live the same life in either world. If you get shot, you die, even with free will. If you lose your legs, you'll be trapped in a wheelchair, even with free will. If you get infected by a zombie disease, you'll become a zombie, even with free will. Free will simply doesn't buy you anything. You can still keep your identity without it.
  - Johnjonjoan 6y ago
    Without free will you've never made a decision. Try telling anyone they didn't decide what they do or like or wear and you'll see that (for now) identity is tightly tied to free will in most peoples minds.
- aurelianito 6y ago
  Toxoplasmosis is known to promote risky behavior in infected people.
deleted 6y ago

dsun179 6y ago

Scrolljacking, history hacking, background ads play with sound. What a shit of a website.

cosarara 6y ago
And both a cookie warning with no easy privacy option (yes vs open settings) and an offer to install their app.
marmshallow 6y ago
I agree it's a shit website, but I loaded it on Chrome with uBlock Origin and I don't have scrolljacking (scrolling seems fine), history hacking (my back button works as expected), and no background ads at all.
- quicklime 6y ago
  Running this with stock standard Firefox (and its standard tracking protections) and the site works well for me too. The state of the web today reminds me a lot of the early '00s when popups were everywhere, and the most popular browser didn't block them by default. Browsing news sites with vanilla Chrome today is awful.
sushshshsh 6y ago
How dare you insult the pinnacle of citizen journalism that is CBS, who surely only have the public good at heart in their intentions...

totalZero 6y ago

I feel kind of sad for these cicadas. Imagine spending 17 years preparing in the darkness for your big cicada debut, only to have your body and behavior taken over by a destructive fungus.

mirimir 6y ago

> But, there's no need to be concerned about being infected by the zombies. Unlike murder hornets or mosquitoes, these zombie cicadas are generally harmless to humans, researchers said. I wonder if they're a workable source of psilocybin.

dillonmckay 6y ago
Cicada tea or a pizza topping?
- mirimir 6y ago
  I have eaten dried grasshoppers with beer. And actually, it's less gross than pork rinds ;)

dillonmckay 6y ago

OK, two questions: Can you make some kind of cicada tea with the psilocybin? Could this have occurred in 1918 and caused human hallucinations because of contamination?

distant_hat 6y ago

I wonder if this is the reason why some mushrooms (which are fungi), such as psylocybes, have such strong mental effects on humans. Shared common pathways from hundreds of millenia old except that in us the effects are limited and dont cause us to climb on a tree and get eaten by a leopard.