Zombie ants . . . possibly in a forest near you . . . .

[cure]

Zombie ants: http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/ ... ant-fungus

[Lord_Pruitt]

Kinda creepy. Makes me wonder if something like that could happen to humans.....

[HuManBing]

I would suspect that sort of parasitism (neural invasion causing a change in behavior that benefits the parasite) is exponentially more difficult the more complex the host organism's brain is.

One example is a parasite that infects snails. It causes their eyestalks to bulge out and pulsate with colorful stripes, and it also causes them to ignore noontime sunlight and stay on the tops of leaves, when uninfected snails stay out of sight on the bottom. The change in behavior causes the infected snails to be easily visible to predatory birds, which then see their eyestalks pulsating and swoop down to eat them. The parasitic worm then finds its way into the bird's digestive tract where it can reproduce.

A human brain has so many different centers that control behavior, a parasite would have to be very sophisticated in order to cause the human to engage in behavior that reliably benefits the parasite.

This is assuming natural selection and evolution, of course. If you add in intelligent design (curses, evil spells, mad doctors' labs, etc.) then anything could be possible.

[Zettaijin]

I wouldn't be surprised to hear of clandestine experimentations aiming to find mind controlling parasites tailored for humans. Not like we haven't been trying hard to find ways to control and manipulate others for ages now.

[cure]

Look up the dancing plague of Strasbourg as an essentially unexplained and possible, if unlikely, candidate.

[Lord_Pruitt]

What better way for a mad scientist to experiment with an unsuspecting village of people????

[Rotipher of the FoS]

A human brain has so many different centers that control behavior, a parasite would have to be very sophisticated in order to cause the human to engage in behavior that reliably benefits the parasite.

It would also require every human's brain to be wired exactly the same way, which is certainly not the case.

Some real-world parasites can and do affect human behavior, but only indirectly, by making you really really hungry (because they're mooching off your half-digested food), hypersensitive to light (because they're blocking your pupillary reflexes), too dizzy to walk well (because they're mucking with your inner ear), etc.

[Joël of the FoS]

Look up the dancing plague of Strasbourg as an essentially unexplained and possible, if unlikely, candidate.

Woa, cool, never heard of that event before.

In RL: Revenge of the Richemulot Pied Pipper?

Joël

[Brock Marsh Runoff]

A human brain has so many different centers that control behavior, a parasite would have to be very sophisticated in order to cause the human to engage in behavior that reliably benefits the parasite.

The most sophisticated parasite of all...IS MAN




Kidding aside, cordyceps fungus is awesome. Check out David Attenborough's video:

[HuManBing]

Cordyceps fungus is indeed interesting. One of the Chinese strains of it has been shown to have some beneficial effects on counteracting the detrimental effects of irradiation (at least in mice): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cordyceps_ ... s_research

[alhoon]

Is it similar to very primitive form of zergs or I'm playing too much starcraft?