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)

Competition, predation, and mutualism | Middle school biology | Khan Academy
15 Life Traps That Keep You Stuck

More Articles

View All
Worked example identifying experiment | Study design | AP Statistics | Khan Academy
So we have some type of study described here. I encourage you to pause this video and think about whether this is an observational study, an experiment, or a sample study. Also, think about whether it was conducted well. All right, now let’s do this toge…
Lightcone: Consumer is back, What’s getting funded now, The vibes immaculate
It feels like there’s more energy around this batch than there has been for as long as I can remember for any YC batch. Like, what do you think’s happening? There’s a platform shift, and this is the moment where every single SAS dollar in the world is up …
Zeros of polynomials: plotting zeros | Polynomial graphs | Algebra 2 | Khan Academy
We’re told we want to find the zeros of this polynomial, and they give us the polynomial right over here, and it’s in factored form. They say plot all the zeros or the x-intercepts of the polynomial in the interactive graph. This is a screenshot from Khan…
Rescuing a Fierce Leopard: See What It Takes | Expedition Raw
Right 80 mg of ketamine and 4A 8 Mig of made tomine; that should do the job. Translocating an animal doesn’t happen very often; it’s a last resort for us. Me and Rudy walk up to the cage, and I’m the bait. I call his attention, so he turns his butt and gi…
Safari Live - Day 118 | National Geographic
Good afternoon and welcome to the sunset safari! Off to a great start already! We did in fact have a butterfly sitting on a piece of grass. It was a cabbage white, but of course it flew away just before we went live. Naturally, my name is Taylor McCurdy a…
Continuity over an interval | Limits and continuity | AP Calculus AB | Khan Academy
What we’re going to do in this video is explore continuity over an interval. But to do that, let’s refresh our memory about continuity at a point. So we say that ( f ) is continuous when ( x ) is equal to ( c ) if and only if, so I’m going to make these t…