Now that the smoke has cleared from the polarizing finale of The Final of Us Season 2, it’s time to place the fungal an infection the collection revolves round below the microscope. Keep in mind, the hit HBO horror collection is customized from the 2013 online game, with Season 2 drawing inspiration from the 2020 gaming sequel, The Final of Us Half II. After all, 2020 additionally marked the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, leading to an eerie, coincidental real-life parallel that made the TV collection as well timed and topical as may be. Within the final 5 years, extra gentle has been shed on the properties of COVID-19 and its transmission, a viral an infection that differs from the fungal illness that turns people into slavering, bloodthirsty zombie ghouls on the hit HBO collection.
With extra emphasis positioned on the Cordyceps Mind An infection in The Final of Us Season 2, it’s value exploring how correct the science is on the present and the way life like it will be if the fungal pathogen might transmute people into mind-controlled automatons. In spite of everything, it’s already been confirmed that the Cordyceps, also referred to as the zombie ant fungus, can infect arthropods, make them behave in opposition to their nature, and promote fungal copy. However can it do the identical to you and me? Properly, get out the lab coats and goggles, it’s time to discover The Actual Science Behind The Final of Us!
Alright, for a bit context, The Final of Us is ready in a post-apocalyptic future during which humanity has been ravaged by a fungal an infection that controls human minds and turns the hosts into brainless, hyperaggressive drones. The aim is to unfold the illness and broaden the fungal species throughout the land. Though there are a lot of real-life fungal illnesses, also referred to as Mycosis, The Final of Us revolves across the particular pressure referred to as Cordyceps, or Ophiocordyceps unilateralis, a parasitic fungal mutation that human beings transmit from individual to individual, populating a horde of violent zombie-like monsters who scour the land in search of extra folks to contaminate.
Past the scientific backdrop, The Final of Us follows Joel and Ellie, two survivors and unlikely companions who forge a robust emotional bond whereas escaping a quarantine zone. Whereas traversing the zombie-strewn countryside collectively, Joel and Ellie encounter one fungally contaminated flesh-eater after one other, a lot of that are categorized by the severity of their sickness. There are Runners, Stalkers, Clickers, and Bloaters, every of which behaves otherwise based mostly on their publicity to the mutated Cordyceps.
With out spoiling essentially the most vital plot factors, the Cordyceps mind an infection stays a outstanding storyline in each seasons, resulting in a harrowing Season 2 finale that has divided followers. In Season 1, the fungal illness unfold environmentally by crops and, later, by saliva and different bodily fluids brought on by bodily bites. In Season 2, the Cordyceps developed into an airborne illness that people contracted by respiratory the infectious spores. Nonetheless, the central query stays: can mutated cordyceps infect human brains as seen in The Final of Us?
Whereas considerably difficult, the straightforward reply is not any. No less than not but. Though mutated Cordyceps have been confirmed to contaminate ants, spiders, and different bugs, there isn’t a proof that the fungus can infect the minds and have an effect on the habits of human beings. Right here’s how the zombie-ant fungus infects arthropods.
The spores of the Cordyceps act as a parasite that assaults bugs, eats by their exoskeleton, and controls their mind to behave within the fungus’s favor. Particularly, the spores overtake management of the insect’s thoughts and motor features, inflicting irregular habits. The spores manipulate the hosts to climb to a better altitude, usually in bushes and timber, to reveal the fungus to as a lot daylight as attainable. Extra daylight equals higher breeding situations for the fungus to breed, maintain its species, and broaden its huge underground community referred to as Mycelium.
The fungus controls the bugs’ minds and intentionally kills them to advertise copy. As soon as the host insect dies, the fungus grows out of the insect’s head, sprouts a mushroom, and releases extra predatory spores on and across the insect to search out their subsequent host and repeat the method time and again. That is all well-proven science that serves as the premise for The Final of Us. Thankfully for human beings, given our present local weather and physique temperatures, there isn’t a imminent menace of fungal infections turning people into grotesque, mushroom-headed zombies.
Removed from conjecture, Yale Faculty of Medication Assistant Professor Scott Roberts, who makes a speciality of infectious illnesses, had this to say in regards to the Cordyceps Mind An infection in The Final of Us: “Very few fungi or mold spread person-to-person, so a fungal pandemic is not too likely,” including, “There are millions of different fungal and mold species out in nature that don’t cause any sort of infection in humans, and this is one of them. A Cordyceps that infects one species of ant cannot even infect other species of ants.”
The first physiological issue stopping people from such a fungal an infection is physique temperature. Most fungal species are unable to develop and reproduce at temperatures greater than 98.6 Levels Fahrenheit, the human physique’s common temperature. Most fungal strains battle to thrive above 94 levels, a reality famous by a mortified mycologist in The Final of Us. Some real-life scientists even consider that people developed their physique temperature particularly to fight fungal infections.
Furthermore, the overwhelming majority of fungal infections will not be transmissible from human to human, as are different infectious illnesses like COVID-19. Some illnesses may be unfold from small animals to people, however Roberts claims Cordyceps shouldn’t be certainly one of them, and humanity shouldn’t be involved. As Roberts states: “Viruses are set up to spread person-to-person—we sneeze, and it can infect 20 people in the right setting. Fungal infections come from the environment through inhaling spores or an exposed wound. And once you’re infected, the risk of spreading it to another person is exceedingly low.”
The Final of Us depicts the unfold of the illness by tainted meals provides. Whereas it’s true that many bacterial infections may be transmitted by what we eat, similar to E. coli or Salmonella, fungal infections will not be a big a part of the equation. No less than, not within the present temperatures all of us inhabit in 2025.
Now, if local weather change continues to escalate at a torrid tempo, the drastic improve in temperatures might result in the type of fungal an infection seen in The Final of Us. If the planet turns into hotter, sure fungal pathogens might evolve sufficient to subsist in greater temperatures, making people extra vulnerable to an infection.
In The Final of Us, the Cordyceps adapt to hotter climate and human physique temperatures. Whereas this isn’t presently believable with Cordyceps, a fungal pressure referred to as Candida auris already thrives in hotter climates. Scarier but, Candida auris is untreatable and may be transmitted from human to human, not like Cordyceps. As Roberts notes: “What does concern me as an infectious disease physician is a relatively new fungus called Candida auris. This fungus spreads person-to-person, which hasn’t really been reported before.”
But, even when speedy local weather change precipitated a large unfold of Candida auris, likelihood is excessive that it will not flip people into senseless zombie-like aggressors. Even dangerous fungi like Aspergillus and Cryptococcus neoformans, which additionally adapt to hotter climates, wouldn’t penetrate people’ organic defenses and morph them into senseless monsters. They may result in deadly lung and respiratory issues, however not brain-altering transformations and ultra-violent urges.
Certain, sure fungal properties, similar to these in psilocybin, can alter our human mind chemistry and make folks hallucinate. However the impact wears off after the mushrooms are digested and don’t trigger persistent, transmissible diseases as seen within the present.
Now, if The Final of Us retained the sport’s unique timeline, maybe the Cordyceps Mind An infection may very well be extra believable. Within the recreation, the fungal pandemic occurred in 2013, with Joel and Ellie’s apocalyptic sojourn happening in 2033. The TV present shifted the timelines again a decade, with the outbreak starting in 2003 and the aftermath set in 2023. It’s simple to grasp why the change was made; to contemporize the story and permit viewers to look at Joel and Ellie take care of the pandemic because the world concurrently handled COVID-19. But, by making the present extra well timed, it stretches the scientific credulity even thinner. Nonetheless, the chances are, between 2025 and 2033, there most likely isn’t sufficient time to extend temperatures considerably sufficient for Cordyceps to evolve and thrive in hotter climate. If the present have been set a millennium later in 3033, then the Cordyceps Mind An infection can be way more possible, as it will enable sufficient time for the fungi to mutate, subsist in hotter climate, and threaten human immune programs.
Except for rising temperatures, the overreliance on antibiotics might probably result in fungal infections amongst people. Overusing antibiotics, a lot of that are produced by fungi, can weaken an individual’s immune system, eliminating all of the helpful and dangerous micro organism without delay. Says Roberts: “Antibiotic use is a huge risk factor for fungal and yeast infections because they essentially wipe out all of the good bacteria, so fungi can start to take over.”
However once more, even when fungal infections turned as threatening because the Cordyceps in The Final of Us, they might not essentially management our minds and switch us into enslaved, ambulatory meat puppets with hyperviolent tendencies. Nor would they kill us so we might propagate their species.
One other key distinction between people and arthropods is that our nervous programs are way more advanced than these of bugs. The nervous system of bugs is especially comprised of simply manipulable ganglia, a easy community of nerves that may be managed. People have way more difficult brains and cerebral mechanisms that will stop us from being hacked and hijacked by Cordyceps or another mutated fungal pressure.
Right here’s the underside line. The Final of Us makes use of a fictional pandemic to lift consciousness in regards to the potential risks of fungal infections, emphasizing the drastic want for extra scientific analysis. Inventive liberties have been taken to think about a future state of affairs, nevertheless distant its plausibility could also be, to grasp the everlasting battle between humanity and nature and their advanced symbiosis.
In 2025, the Cordyceps Mind An infection seen in The Final of Us is subsequent to unimaginable. In a thousand years or extra, with speedy local weather change and antibiotic utilization, spore, mildew, and fungus turning us all into mind-controlled zombies is theoretically extra possible. The HBO collection, just like the online game it’s impressed by, is extra science fiction than scientific actuality.
