5 ms·

Are they becoming deadlier? Or, did they just rise higher in the list by virtue of the fact that other threats were mitigated.

ipsum2 5y ago
> That mutual coexistence is now tipping out of balance. Fungi are surging beyond the climate zones they long lived in, adapting to environments that would once have been inimical, learning new behaviors that let them leap between species in novel ways. While executing those maneuvers, they are becoming more successful pathogens, threatening human health in ways—and numbers—they could not achieve before. Still early stages, but signs point to fungi becoming deadlier.
- bdamm 5y ago
  It's a bit of creative writing, mostly. Fungi evolve, that's what they do. And they evolve very rapidly. They also have great staying power, with spores that have covered every square millimeter of the earth pretty much for the entire history of life on earth. You're breathing some in right now. Animals evolved warm-bloodedness partly to improve resistance to environmental fungi. Meanwhile, insects (bees, ants, others) actually farm fungi as part of their food and for defense. This all points to a really profound and fundamental fact: We have been co-existing with fungi every second of every person's entire lives. If fungi are killing more people, it's because people have changed, not the fungi.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - Dotnaught 5y ago
    >Animals evolved warm-bloodedness partly to improve resistance to environmental fungi I was listening to a podcast recently that discussed how human average body temperature has been declining in recent years while heat tolerance of fungi has been rising (thanks to the climate). The result is that our bodies are less capable of preventing fungal infections through heat and fungi can be pretty deadly if unchecked.
    - everdrive 5y ago
      That's pretty interesting. Are there any guesses as to why body temperature is declining?
      - edejong 5y ago
        Here is my hypothesis. Our body temperature is expensive and evolutionary not 'stable'. In the past, it would make sense that in environments with lower bacterial threats, the group would select for lower body temperature in order to preserve energy. In order to do that, individuals with too low a body temperature would be removed from the group due to infections. This would create a balanced system between body temperature (energy expenditure) and bacterial immunity. With the development of antibiotics, this changed. The previous bottom of the group is not culled anymore, removing the barrier of the imbalance. Therefore, the group is 'safely' selecting for lower body temperatures.
        bdamm 5y ago
        And so a new pathogen is emerging to fulfill the void once dominated by bacterial infections. Makes sense..
      - Enginerrrd 5y ago
        My money is on the same endocrine disupters that are lowering testosterone levels, lowering sperm counts, and likely increasing obesity issues.
        astrange 5y ago
        > My money is on the same endocrine disupters that are lowering testosterone levels, lowering sperm counts The studies that found this also found that 1. sperm counts stopped and went back up again 2. men with lower testosterone have more children.
      - Dotnaught 5y ago
        It was a Radio Lab (Fungus Amungus): https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radiolab/articles/fungus-amungus https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radiolab/articles/fungu... The theory is that in wealthy countries with good public health, there's less need to maintain a high body temperature to fend off threats. The show said that human body temperature "has been steadily declining for decades at a rate of, like, .05 degrees Fahrenheit per decade." (though not in less developed countries)...average is said to be more like 97.5 degrees.
  - eloff 5y ago
    Was with you up to: > If fungi are killing more people, it's because people have changed, not the fungi. That's an overreach. It could be either or both. Obviously fungi are evolving rapidly as you yourself point out.
    - bdamm 5y ago
      Right; but they've been evolving rapidly the entire time. So they're still doing what they've always done. If the environment is changing, and people are changing, and that's causing us to be vulnerable to conditions we weren't previously vulnerable to, then that's a problem caused by people changing. These stories look for a villain, and seem to end up villainizing the fungus, which is good for sensationalism but not very useful for understanding what is actually happening.
tbwriting 5y ago
15th paragraph: > Not all of our vulnerability is the fault of medicine preserving life so successfully. Other human actions have opened more doors between the fungal world and our own. We clear land for crops and settlement and perturb what were stable balances between fungi and their hosts. We carry goods and animals across the world, and fungi hitchhike on them. We drench crops in fungicides and enhance the resistance of organisms residing nearby. We take actions that warm the climate, and fungi adapt, narrowing the gap between their preferred temperature and ours that protected us for so long.
shoto_io 5y ago
Might be also be attributed to attention bias. Interest in fungi steadily grew -in my perception at least- over the last years.

ipsum2 5y ago

> That mutual coexistence is now tipping out of balance. Fungi are surging beyond the climate zones they long lived in, adapting to environments that would once have been inimical, learning new behaviors that let them leap between species in novel ways. While executing those maneuvers, they are becoming more successful pathogens, threatening human health in ways—and numbers—they could not achieve before. Still early stages, but signs point to fungi becoming deadlier.

bdamm 5y ago
It's a bit of creative writing, mostly. Fungi evolve, that's what they do. And they evolve very rapidly. They also have great staying power, with spores that have covered every square millimeter of the earth pretty much for the entire history of life on earth. You're breathing some in right now. Animals evolved warm-bloodedness partly to improve resistance to environmental fungi. Meanwhile, insects (bees, ants, others) actually farm fungi as part of their food and for defense. This all points to a really profound and fundamental fact: We have been co-existing with fungi every second of every person's entire lives. If fungi are killing more people, it's because people have changed, not the fungi.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- Dotnaught 5y ago
  >Animals evolved warm-bloodedness partly to improve resistance to environmental fungi I was listening to a podcast recently that discussed how human average body temperature has been declining in recent years while heat tolerance of fungi has been rising (thanks to the climate). The result is that our bodies are less capable of preventing fungal infections through heat and fungi can be pretty deadly if unchecked.
  - everdrive 5y ago
    That's pretty interesting. Are there any guesses as to why body temperature is declining?
    - edejong 5y ago
      Here is my hypothesis. Our body temperature is expensive and evolutionary not 'stable'. In the past, it would make sense that in environments with lower bacterial threats, the group would select for lower body temperature in order to preserve energy. In order to do that, individuals with too low a body temperature would be removed from the group due to infections. This would create a balanced system between body temperature (energy expenditure) and bacterial immunity. With the development of antibiotics, this changed. The previous bottom of the group is not culled anymore, removing the barrier of the imbalance. Therefore, the group is 'safely' selecting for lower body temperatures.
      - bdamm 5y ago
        And so a new pathogen is emerging to fulfill the void once dominated by bacterial infections. Makes sense..
    - Enginerrrd 5y ago
      My money is on the same endocrine disupters that are lowering testosterone levels, lowering sperm counts, and likely increasing obesity issues.
      - astrange 5y ago
        > My money is on the same endocrine disupters that are lowering testosterone levels, lowering sperm counts The studies that found this also found that 1. sperm counts stopped and went back up again 2. men with lower testosterone have more children.
    - Dotnaught 5y ago
      It was a Radio Lab (Fungus Amungus): https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radiolab/articles/fungus-amungus https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radiolab/articles/fungu... The theory is that in wealthy countries with good public health, there's less need to maintain a high body temperature to fend off threats. The show said that human body temperature "has been steadily declining for decades at a rate of, like, .05 degrees Fahrenheit per decade." (though not in less developed countries)...average is said to be more like 97.5 degrees.
- eloff 5y ago
  Was with you up to: > If fungi are killing more people, it's because people have changed, not the fungi. That's an overreach. It could be either or both. Obviously fungi are evolving rapidly as you yourself point out.
  - bdamm 5y ago
    Right; but they've been evolving rapidly the entire time. So they're still doing what they've always done. If the environment is changing, and people are changing, and that's causing us to be vulnerable to conditions we weren't previously vulnerable to, then that's a problem caused by people changing. These stories look for a villain, and seem to end up villainizing the fungus, which is good for sensationalism but not very useful for understanding what is actually happening.

tbwriting 5y ago

15th paragraph: > Not all of our vulnerability is the fault of medicine preserving life so successfully. Other human actions have opened more doors between the fungal world and our own. We clear land for crops and settlement and perturb what were stable balances between fungi and their hosts. We carry goods and animals across the world, and fungi hitchhike on them. We drench crops in fungicides and enhance the resistance of organisms residing nearby. We take actions that warm the climate, and fungi adapt, narrowing the gap between their preferred temperature and ours that protected us for so long.

shoto_io 5y ago

Might be also be attributed to attention bias. Interest in fungi steadily grew -in my perception at least- over the last years.