holy crap! The Host is REAL!

[PepperElf]

http://io9.com/5918948/fungal-infect...o-grow-antlers

Well... for arthropods at least.

Apparently they can be infected by a fungus called cordyceps that replaces the host DNA with its own. In some species the invader also has mind-control functions and, before killing the host, forces it to relocate to areas better suited for the fungus.


The only thing freakier than that is... what the host ends up looking like. ... An arthropod with ANTLERS.

[Aislin]

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/...-crazy/308873/
Cordyceps effect humans too. My art teacher was deathly afraid of cats because an artist he had followed was infected and it changed his painting style and his personality and eventually led to his attempted suicide.

[Eevie]

You know how babies cry when they're scared? Yeah, I'm starting to feel that way too. It's bad enough that I hate spiders as is, but I didn't need to see that...

[Salted Grump]

And this is why the world posited by the videogame 'The Last of Us' is probably the most plausible 'zombie apocalypse' in the last 20 years.

[Jay 2K Winger]

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/...-crazy/308873/
Cordyceps effect humans too. My art teacher was deathly afraid of cats because an artist he had followed was infected and it changed his painting style and his personality and eventually led to his attempted suicide.

And this is why the world posited by the videogame 'The Last of Us' is probably the most plausible 'zombie apocalypse' in the last 20 years.

Yup. "The Last of Us" features a zompocalypse (that isn't a word? IT IS NOW) in which cordyceps went epidemic and turned people into mindless running monsters.

[PepperElf]

well... to be honest i was going to call it "zombies" at first but figured the creature wasn't animated after death. but yeah i can see why they'd use that theme for a zombie apocalypse.

[ComputerNecromancer]

And this is why the world posited by the videogame 'The Last of Us' is probably the most plausible 'zombie apocalypse' in the last 20 years.

Check out Mira Grant's "Newsflesh" trilogy.

Shortly after the first book came out there were *real* news items that were scarily close to some of the things that set up *her* zombie apocalypse (btw, the books are set 20 years *after* the zombie Apocalypse. We survived. Mostly)

[wolfie]

Don't know the name, but I've heard of another behaviour-altering infestation. There's one parasite (been a while since I heard about it, so I think it's a multi-cell parasite and not a microbe) that spends one stage of its life cycle in mice, and the next in cats. When a mouse is infested, it loses its fear of cats (i.e. the smell of cat urine won't send it scurrying to safety) - but not its fear of other types of predators (i.e. will still avoid situations that would leave it vulnerable to owls and other birds of prey).