In the story series The Last of Us, a fungal infection turns humans into zombies. Even though it's just a movie, a fungal infection that turns humans into zombies is inspired by real mushrooms that exist in the real world.
Biological scientist from the National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN) Professor Rosichon Ubaidillah MPhil, PhD, said that humans and all living things are basically susceptible to viral, bacterial, fungal or parasitic infections. This became the inspiration for films about zombies.
"Zombies have a long history and this word emerged from a fictional story in 1838 in America called 'The Unknown Painter' and written by The New York Time," Rosichon said during a live Eureka! Zombie attack, Monday (30/1/2023) night.
The Unknown Painter tells the story of the escape of slaves in colonial Haiti. These slaves are depicted with terrible faces and body conditions. Becoming a zombie is a nightmare because activities are under the master's control until they die.
"So this film depicts that zombies are like living corpses looking for human blood. It is imagination that is associated with zombie attacks. What about the zombie attack itself? If we look at The Last of Us, that kind of attack (parasite fungus) is real," said Rosichon.
Can it attack humans?
There are some 'zombieing' parasites or those that can turn their hosts into zombies. These parasites can be mushrooms, horsehair worms, wasps, and so on.
In The Last of Us, the depiction of a fungal infection turning humans into zombies looks as if they were real. In fact, the fungus Ophiocordyceps unilateralis from The Last of Us is real in the world!
The question arises whether this kind of parasite can actually attack humans? Relax... that kind of zombie parasite can only attack insects or other invertebrates.
"Even jumping to a different species is not easy. The research results prove that the isolation of the Ophiocordycep fungus which is infected with different ants does not cause ants to become zombies," he said.
Scientists have just discovered a fact in nature, that the parasitic fungus Ophiocordyceps can only turn ants into zombies. Then, there are the Nematomorpha parasite worms (Chordodes spp.) or horsehair worms that turn grasshoppers into zombies, and Jewel Wasp Ampulex compressa or jewel wasps that manipulate the behavior of cockroaches into zombies.
"That imagination was used as a basis for making science fiction The Last of Us. But tracking when and where this parasite evolved with humans, until now has been difficult to understand," he explained.
Rosichon mentions the parasite and host association (Ophiocordyceps and ants) co-evolved millions of years under the process of natural selection. It takes millions of years for the Ophiocordyceps parasite to be able to 'jump' to attack humans and other mammals, just like in the horror film.
He added, Ophiocordyceps cannot grow at the temperature of human blood (warm blood) and is unable to fight the human immune system to infect the brain and nervous system at the same time.
"Zombies are an interesting phenomenon in the life of insects. I'm glad creators can use this to make interesting films, so that people learn about it," he said.