One of nature’s most intriguing horror stories is that of the fungus that “zombifies” ants to spread its spores. Now, researchers have discovered the oldest known example of this kind of parasite at ...

Ant (scientific name: Camponotus atriceps) infected with fungus (scientific name: Ophiocordyceps unilateralis sensu lato). The fungus forces the ant to climb off the forest floor and bite down on a ...

"Hearst Magazines and Yahoo may earn commission or revenue on some items through these links." “The fungi spreads through spores. A spore lands on an ant and produces a tube that bores through the ...

If you’ve been following HBO’s breakout hit The Last of Us—a story of people navigating a post-apocalyptic world where the cordyceps brain infection (CBI) has turned most of mankind into zombies—then ...

This article is reposted from the old WordPress incarnation of Not Exactly Rocket Science. Imagine you get a bad cold, but you decide to put on a brave face and go into work anyway. Instead of ...

The consequences of climate change are numerous, but viewers of HBO's The Last of Us might have been surprised to learn that it could lead to a post-apocalyptic world taken over by zombies that were ...

As the climate warms the planet and temperatures rise, some fungi are figuring out how to exist at higher temperatures than they usually like. Enter zombie concerns. Some real-life fungi are already ...

A team of evolutionary biology researchers reported an important new insight into the origin of zombies last week — in this case, ants zombified by a fungus. Sometimes an ant steps on a fungal spore.

Ants are a perfect model to study cooperation, especially when it comes to preventing the spread of disease. Similar to a hospital, healthy individuals take care of sick ones. However, while a ...

Sanitary care in ants to fight disease is known to improve the wellbeing of the colony, yet it has been unclear how social disease defense interferes with pathogen competition inside the individual ...

Ants that grow their food have to weed, too. Now, the first detailed study of ants tending fungus gardens shows that whether the gardener has two legs or six, the chore looks much the same. Like the ...