{"id":6774,"date":"2024-03-10T13:09:51","date_gmt":"2024-03-10T17:09:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/the-strange-science-of-zombie-fungi-the-marginalian\/"},"modified":"2024-03-10T13:09:51","modified_gmt":"2024-03-10T17:09:51","slug":"the-strange-science-of-zombie-fungi-the-marginalian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/the-strange-science-of-zombie-fungi-the-marginalian\/","title":{"rendered":"The Strange Science of Zombie Fungi \u2013 The Marginalian"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Profit<\/a>
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\"Cordyceps,<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThe mind is its own place,\u201d Milton wrote<\/a> in Paradise Lost<\/em>, \u201cand in it self can make a Heav\u2019n of Hell, a Hell of Heav\u2019n.\u201d While this is psychologically true \u2014 the mind is, after all, how consciousness renders reality<\/a> \u2014 it is not always physiologically true: The brain and body out of which the mind arises are a physical system, contiguous with every physical force and process that touches it, permeable to myriad invasions and reconfigurations that alter the system and thus transform the mind into a wholly different place. <\/p>\n

Nowhere is this haunting vulnerability to transformation starker than in the case of the fungus Ophiocordyceps unilateralis<\/em> and the mind of the carpenter ant, challenging our most elemental intuitions about agency, about autonomy, about what a self is. <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Part of a group known as \u201czombie fungi,\u201d Ophiocordyceps<\/em> hijacks an insect, driving it to disperse the fungus\u2019s spores at the price of its own life. In his altogether fascinating book Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures<\/em><\/strong><\/a> (public library<\/em><\/a>), mycologist Merlin Sheldrake details this sinister puppet show of biochemistry:<\/p>\n

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Once infected by the fungus, ants are stripped of their instinctive fear of heights, leave the relative safety of their nests, and climb up the nearest plant \u2014 a syndrome known as \u201csummit disease.\u201d In due course the fungus forces the ant to clamp its jaws around the plant in a \u201cdeath grip.\u201d Mycelium grows from the ant\u2019s feet and stitches them to the plant\u2019s surface. The fungus then digests the ant\u2019s body and sprouts a stalk out of its head, from which spores shower down on ants passing below. If the spores miss their targets, they produce secondary sticky spores that extend outward on threads that act like trip wires. <\/p>\n

Zombie fungi control the behavior of their insect hosts with exquisite precision. Ophiocordyceps<\/em> compels ants to perform the death grip in a zone with just the right temperature and humidity to allow the fungus to fruit: a height of twenty-five centimeters above the forest floor. The fungus orients ants according to the direction of the sun, and infected ants bite in synchrony, at noon. They don\u2019t bite any old spot on the leaf\u2019s underside. Ninety-eight percent of the time, the ants clamp onto a major vein.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Because the marks left on leaf veins by these death-bites are so distinct, evidence of them can be found in the fossil record as far back as the Eocene, nearly fifty million years ago \u2014 the dawn of modern fauna, a time when forests covered the Earth from pole to pole. Sheldrake reflects:<\/p>\n

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It is likely that fungi have been manipulating animal minds for much of the time that there have been minds to manipulate.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

<\/a>
Art by Moomins<\/em> creator Tove Jansson for a rare 1966 edition<\/a> of Alice\u2019s Adventures in Wonderland<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

But unlike the mind-controlling parasite that drives wasps to abandon their colonies<\/a>, Ophiocordyceps<\/em> seems to manipulate the mind through the backdoor of the body: Research indicates that the fungus may not have a physical presence in the ant\u2019s brain, instead secreting chemicals that activate the ant\u2019s muscles and steer its central nervous system (which we now know is the evolutionary underpinning of consciousness<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Couple with the new science of how fungi are altering human minds<\/a>, then revisit Lewis Thomas\u2019s magnificent meditation on how the relationship between a jellyfish and a sea slug illuminates the mystery of the self<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Profit<\/a>
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cThe mind is its own place,\u201d Milton wrote in Paradise Lost, \u201cand in it self can make a Heav\u2019n of Hell, a Hell of Heav\u2019n.\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6775,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6774","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-purpose"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6774","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6774"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6774\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6775"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6774"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6774"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6774"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}