What is the likelihood of an apocalypse like the one in HBO's The Last of Us actually happening?
LISTEN NOW: Something Offbeat: Could 'The Last of Us' really happen?
Dr. Cameron Carlson of the Zombie Research Society told Audacy’s Something Offbeat podcast that one of the greatest zombie risks may be hiding in litter boxes.
He explained that toxoplasmosis, an infection caused by the parasite called Toxoplasma gondii, can cause some zombie-like symptoms. A study in the Parasitology journal has also fond that it “is known to induce specific behavioral changes in its intermediate hosts.”
“Toxoplasmosis is actually... carried in the feces of infected felines. So, what does that mean for us? Well, that means that we can contract it through cat feces,” Carlson explained. “If someone has a cat, we can also contract toxoplasmosis through eating uncooked, contaminated, undercooked meat.”
Carlson and host Mike Rogers also discussed the real-life Ophiocordyceps unilateralis fungus that inspired the pandemic depicted in the “The Last of Us” video game and HBO show.
According to research published in the Communicative and Integrative Biology journal in 2011 the fungus manipulates and kills ants. Another study published in the Nature journal in 2020 explained these ant victims “behave like ‘zombies,’ walking randomly and displaying convulsions that make them fall down, after which the ants climb up vegetation to bite the underside of leaves or twigs.”
Fortunately, Carlson said that we shouldn’t worry about a zombie ant fungus outbreak – probably.
“I tell everybody and the motto of the society is... what you don’t know can eat you,” he said. “And it’s true.”
Each week, Something Offbeat dives into stranger-than-fiction headlines. If you have suggestions for stories the show should cover, send them to somethingoffbeat@audacy.com.
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