How mushrooms manipulate ants and bedbugs, make beetles become necrophiles, why should the wasp carry zombie cockroaches with it and why does the US Armed Forces need a plan in case of a zombie apocalypse, we tell in the second part of the zombie review. The first part - about hijacking worms, zombie squirrels and zombies in the middle of Brooklyn, read here.
Life, death and necrophilia "under the mushrooms"
But you don't even have to be an animal to command a multicellular host. All human intrigues and ultimatums, NLP and hypnosis will seem ridiculous childish amusements in comparison with the skill of professionals in this matter - mushrooms. And this is not at all about narcotic effects, as you might think from the impressive title of a review on this topic - "Evolution of Behavioral Manipulation in Fungi."
Some mushrooms simply gradually kill their hosts and germinate through their bodies, scattering spores. But many mushrooms have gone further: Massospora cicadina, for example, infects the intestines of cicadas, leaving them alive for a while. The cicada's belly falls off so that the spores scatter better, but the insect continues to fly, tries to eat and even mate, infecting more and more congeners.
A cicada infected with a fungus. Massospora cicadina shard7 / Flickr
Other fungi control the behavior of animals, not just their bodies. If the fungus Purpureocillium cf. lilacinum infects the shield bugs Edessa rufomarginata from Costa Rica, the latter, apparently imbued with love for nightshades, which they usually live on, begin to hug their stems, without opening their legs even after death. So the spores of the fungus can scatter from a height over long distances.
Chauliognathus pensylvanicus is a golden beetle that turns into a "zombie" due to another fungus, Eryniopsis lampyridarum. Shortly before death, the beetle climbs on a flower (often on some astro-colored one) and hangs, holding onto it with its jaws. But the action of the parasite does not end there: 15-22 hours after death, in the early morning, the beetle's abdomen swells from the sprouted fungus. A dead beetle raises its elytra and opens its wings, thin as mica, inviting other beetles to mate. But necrophilia does not lead to anything good, and all seduced beetles also become infected with deadly conidiospores.
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If the mushroom has to overwinter, it does not surround the victim's abdomen with fluffy "furs" of its spores and does not make it hang on the flower with its wings spread, like a Christmas tree toy. Dormant spores fill the body of the beetle in thousands and hibernate inside. The mechanism of action of this parasitic fungus is still not known in detail.
The one-sided Cordyceps fungus (which also lives in Costa Rica) also causes local campotus ants to climb high leaves and die there, gripping the central vein with their jaws. The graveyards of such ants occupy an area of 20-30 square meters. Inside the ant, cordyceps increases the synthesis of the enzyme tyrosine forsphatase by 110 times. This enzyme is known to cause viral-infected caterpillars to move more, which is why scientists have suggested that cordyceps controls the campotus through the same mechanism.
Cordyceps is a very ancient parasite: the oldest marks, similar to the trail of a dead ant infected with this fungus, are found on fossils 48 million years old. Why has he still not exterminated the Kamponotus? It turned out that he has a superparasitic fungus, which plays a "double game", attacking its own cousin, which is zombifying ants. True, this double agent fungus does not save ants, but it does not allow cordyceps to multiply, arranging for the infected something like a quarantine.
Lady with a stash
But insects are not bastard: one should not think that they always become weak-willed victims. The emerald cockroach wasp is a manipulator itself with experience. She, like a Gammeln rat-catcher, makes half-dead cockroaches follow, holding their antennae. An insidious seductress in an iridescent costume leads them into a burrow, where her larvae will be born. So she provides her offspring with fresh food. The secret to keeping the cockroach alive by the time the wasp hatches is that it breathes less, but remains hydrated, but the recipe for such a dish has not yet been established in detail.
An elegant lady with an aspen (literally) waist with the first prick of a sting (a modified part of the ovipositor) neutralizes the victim. The wasp strikes the second blow directly into the "brain" - the subopharyngeal nerve node of the cockroach - with an accuracy that matches its "jewelry" name. The wasp "aims" to pierce the lining of the nerve node (analogous to our blood-brain barrier), focusing on the chemical signals of the insect.
The slender beauty's venom blocks the receptors for the neurotransmitter octopamine, forcing the cockroach to follow her. Scientists have proven this by making their own zombie cockroach in the same way. Introducing octopamine blocker to cockroaches, neuroscientists subdued them to their will, depriving them of the ability to independently control their own movements.
The reverse process was also possible: if after an attack by a wasp, an antidote is injected into cockroaches to unblock octopamine receptors, the paralyzed insects regain freedom of movement.
Zombies, Science and Education
While some biologists enthusiastically study the zombification of hosts with parasites, other scientists have made zombies work for themselves, making them an excellent model for calculations and assumptions in a variety of fields - mathematics, epidemiology, student training and medical personnel.
The Strategic Command of the US Armed Forces even has a plan of action in the event of a zombie apocalypse. This curious document is called CONOP 8888. According to the confessions of its compilers, it was created for military exercises and practicing emergency situations, and such an original "enemy" was chosen in order not to antagonize politicians of foreign states.
Doctors also come up with how they could stop the zombie apocalypse. In one of the reviews on this topic, the fictional "solanum virus" from the book "A Guide to Survival Among Zombies" was taken as a model. The authors believe that nurses will be the first to face such a disease, if it occurs, of course. Recommendations have been drawn up for medical personnel on how to prevent the spread of the virus, which is transmitted through blood, sweat and other body fluids, as well as how to resuscitate and rescue such patients. The guide is also suitable for dealing with other epidemics where the infection is transmitted in the same way.
Still from the movie "Silent Hill" by TriStar Pictures / Wikimedia Commons
Staff at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota chose not zombies to target, but professional hunters. Their reasoning, published in the Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law, moves from the 2012 film, in which Abraham Lincoln fights against them with a professional zombie hunter, to a change in the meaning of the word "professionalism." According to the authors, at different times people with different qualities were considered more professional in medicine and the social sphere. Once they were more knowledgeable and skillful specialists, then they were community-oriented, but now they are considered to be more patient or student-oriented specialists.
Some scientists and professors suggest using zombies to educate students. For example, teach neurobiology and microbiology at the same time using the examples of manipulator parasites. At the same time, one can also interest in computer modeling of epidemics: zombie attacks or parasitic infections are a good field for mathematical exercises.
We are all the walking dead
According to some scientists, we behave like zombies even without any parasites, so apocalyptic scenarios are closer than they seem. But we should be afraid and hide from ourselves. Thus, the film "The Walking Dead" shows the dark side of human nature. “We are strange and dangerous, we are subject to the influence of selfishness and have not strayed far from basic animal instincts,” writes the author of the work, Benjamin Doolittle of Yale University. "I suggested that if we are afraid of zombies, then maybe not because they are so different from us, but because they are too similar to us."
The walking Dead. PlayStation Europe / Flickr
The author of the article compares doctors who have undergone emotional burnout to zombies. As with zombie characters who survive when needed by the screenwriter, there is only one way for doctors in the real world after burnout. They need to clearly define their goal, understand why all this is needed, why they continue this work, otherwise all their actions are reduced to automatism, and they come to the hospital like living dead, performing the usual set of actions, but not feeling any pleasure from life.
If Doolittle calls the walking dead those who hardly consider themselves to be them (and the doctor's article is predominantly speculative), then some people sincerely think so about themselves. The authors of the article in the journal Neuropsychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences describe an interesting case of Cotard's syndrome, in which depressive delusions are characteristic about the disgusting state of their own health ("I rotted from the inside", "I have no heart") or the upcoming world cataclysms.
A 32-year-old patient who received diagnoses of schizophrenia and drug addiction ten years earlier was caught on another crime and fell into the hands of psychiatrists. The man had pretended to be dead since he allegedly drowned in the lake a few years ago, and the radiation from his mobile phone made him rise, turning him into a zombie. Moreover, the patient was sure that everyone around them also drowned and died, after which they turned into zombies, so that crimes against them are not considered. In addition, the patient was not afraid of judgment and punishment, since he considered himself dead, and therefore devoid of feelings. So it was really dangerous to leave him at large, because the belief that he was a zombie only helped him to justify attacks of aggression in front of himself. In general, the patient practically considered himself a living philosophical zombie - he behaved like a human, but thoughtthat does not feel anything and has no conscious experience.
But the reverse transformation is also possible: an ordinary person can look like a zombie without any makeup. Finally, we share a recipe for a magical transformation that could help disguise during a zombie apocalypse. In order not to worry about your safety, you just need to get sick with leishmaniasis. Leishmanias are unicellular flagellate parasites that usually enter the body through a mosquito bite. Don't be confused: you need Leishmania tropica, which affects the skin and does not affect the internal organs, and not its relatives. For example, if you suddenly become infected with Leishmania donovani, visceral leishmaniasis awaits you, and the parasites will multiply in your spleen and bone marrow - and not far from death.
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But if you made the right choice, then in just a week (or eight months, with another type of disease) your skin will be covered with ugly sores, and no zombie can distinguish you from their fellows.
Ekaterina Mishchenko
