yego.me
yego.me
💡 Stop wasting time. Read Youtube instead of watch. Download Chrome Extension

'Zombie' Parasite Cordyceps Fungus Takes Over Insects Through Mind Control | National Geographic

less than 1m read
·Nov 11, 2024

Fungi and slime molds race to decompose dead matter on the forest floor. Many spread by releasing spores up to thirty thousand a second. (scary music)

If just one of these spores lands in the right place, and takes root, it can colonize a whole new area. (scary music)

But not all fungi feed on the dead. (scary music) Days ago, a spore landed on this ant, now she's acting strange. A network of roots has infiltrated her muscles. Her body has been taken over by cordyceps, a parasitic fungus. It floods her brain with chemicals, drugging her, compelling her to head where conditions are perfect. (scary music)

Just the right amount of light. Just the right amount of humidity for the parasite growing inside. It forces her to clamp down in a death bite. And cordyceps reveals its gruesome nature. (scary music)

After three weeks of growth, cordyceps can release its own spores. Infecting more ants. Releasing more spores. Infecting more ants. Releasing more spores. Infecting more ants. Infecting more ants. More ants. More ants. More ants. (scary music)

Cordyceps can wipe out entire ant colonies. But more than just ants are at risk. (scary music)

There are over six hundred species of cordyceps spread across the world. Most are found in jungles where they prey on a whole host of victims. (scary music)

Genetics vocabulary | Inheritance and variation | Middle school biology | Khan Academy
Representing quantities with vectors | Vectors | Precalculus | Khan Academy

More Articles

View All
Thermodynamics vs. kinetics | Applications of thermodynamics | AP Chemistry | Khan Academy
In chemistry, it’s important to distinguish between thermodynamics and kinetics. For example, if we think about the conversion of carbon as a solid in the diamond form to carbon as a solid in the graphite form, thermodynamics tells us what will happen. Wi…
"He Saved My Life" American Soldier Returns to Help Iraqi Captain Fleeing ISIS | National Geographic
[Music] [Music] Ian yes for [Music] I’m very scared to lose my son, lose my daughter, lose my wife, thus all my [Music] life. The soldiers, like the captain, are the ones that kept us alive. My name is Chase Msab. I’m a veteran of the Iraq War. I did thre…
Example punnet square for sex-linked recessive trait | High school biology | Khan Academy
Hemophilia is an X-linked recessive trait that affects blood clotting. If someone has hemophilia, their blood has trouble clotting. If a carrier woman and a hemophiliac man have a daughter, what is the percent chance that she, the daughter, will have hemo…
Executive and legislative disagreements with the Supreme Court | Khan Academy
In many videos already, we have talked about our three branches of government in the United States. But what we’re going to do in this video is focus a little bit more on the judicial branch. As we’ve talked about, the judicial branch’s main goal is to be…
Chaos: The Science of the Butterfly Effect
Part of this video is sponsored by LastPass. More about LastPass at the end of the show. The butterfly effect is the idea that the tiny causes, like a flap of a butterfly’s wings in Brazil, can have huge effects, like setting off a tornado in Texas. Now …
Partial derivatives and graphs
Hello everyone. So I have here the graph of a two variable function, and I’d like to talk about how you can interpret the partial derivative of that function. So specifically, the function that you’re looking at is f of x, y is equal to x squared times y…