{"id":2423579,"date":"2019-10-22T13:03:38","date_gmt":"2019-10-22T13:03:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wacoca.com\/videos\/2423579\/model\/"},"modified":"2019-10-22T13:03:38","modified_gmt":"2019-10-22T13:03:38","slug":"this-killer-fungus-turns-flies-into-zombies-deep-look","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wacoca.com\/videos\/2423579\/model\/","title":{"rendered":"This Killer Fungus Turns Flies into Zombies | Deep Look"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\"  width=\"580\" height=\"385\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/C2Jw5ib-s_I?modestbranding=1\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><br \/>\n<br \/>\nSomething is growing inside that fruit fly in your kitchen. At dusk, the fly points its wings straight up and dies in a gruesome pose so that a fungus can ooze out and fire hundreds of reproductive spores.<\/p>\n<p>Join our community on Patreon! https:\/\/www.patreon.com\/deeplook<\/p>\n<p>DEEP LOOK is a ultra-HD (4K) short video series created by KQED San Francisco and presented by PBS Digital Studios. See the unseen at the very edge of our visible world. Explore big scientific mysteries by going incredibly small.<\/p>\n<p>00:00 Introduction<br \/>\n00:22 Fruit Fly &#8211; Drosophila melanogaster<br \/>\n00:35 Fruit Fly Ingests Spores<br \/>\n01:00 Fruit Fly Behaves Erratically<br \/>\n01:11 Summiting<br \/>\n01:21 Fungus Takes Over The Fly&#8217;s Mind<br \/>\n01:38 Death Pose<br \/>\n01:58 Entomophthora muscae, a.k.a. &#8220;The Fly Destroyer&#8221;<br \/>\n02:09 Spore Launchers<br \/>\n02:53 Secondary Spores<br \/>\n03:11 How Does A Fungus Take Control Of A Brain?<br \/>\n03:36 Can We Harness This Fungus For Our Benefit?<\/p>\n<p>Some of the scariest monsters are the ones that grow inside another being and take over its body. Think of the movie Alien, where the reptile-like space creature explodes out of its victim\u2019s chest.<\/p>\n<p>That monster might be fictional, but scientists are studying a fungus that\u2019s horrifyingly real \u2014 at least for the flies it invades, turns into a zombie-like state and kills in order to reproduce. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cOh, it\u2019s a nightmare for the flies,\u201d said entomologist Brad Mullens, who studied the fungus at the University of California, Riverside.<\/p>\n<p>The fungus is known by its scientific name, Entomophthora muscae, which means \u201cfly destroyer.\u201d It lives off houseflies and fruit flies, among others. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s a crazy system,\u201d said Carolyn Elya, a biologist at Harvard. \u201cThe fungus only kills at dusk.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>Like a killer puppeteer, the fungus follows a precise clock. <\/p>\n<p>At dusk on the fourth or fifth day after it picks up a fungal spore, an infected fruit fly stops flying. It starts behaving erratically, for example climbing up and down toothpicks that Elya puts into the vials where she keeps the infected insects.<\/p>\n<p>Then the fly climbs to the top of the toothpick, a behavior Elya and other scientists refer to as \u201csummiting.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>In an unusual twist, the fly then extends its mouthpart down, and some liquid drips out and glues the fly to the surface it\u2019s standing on. Over the next 10 minutes, the fly\u2019s wings ascend until they\u2019re pointing upwards and it dies frozen in this lifelike pose. <\/p>\n<p>Soon after, white spongy fungus oozes out of its abdomen. This white goo is made up of hundreds of lollipop-shaped protrusions which each launch a microscopic bell-shaped spore at high speed. Now the spores just need to get into another fly to grow.<\/p>\n<p>&#8212; Could this or a similar fungus \u201czombify\u201d humans?<br \/>\n\u201cNo, it&#8217;s very unlikely,\u201d Elya said. \u201cWe can control our bodily temperature to kill invaders.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&#8212;+ Read the entire article on KQED Science:<br \/>\nhttps:\/\/www.kqed.org\/science\/1949314\/this-killer-fungus-turns-flies-into-zombies<\/p>\n<p>&#8212;+ Shoutout! <\/p>\n<p>\ud83c\udfc6Congratulations\ud83c\udfc6 to the following fans on our Deep Look Community Tab for coming up with the top titles for a horror movie starring this fungus:<\/p>\n<p>Joginiz &#8211; &#8220;Flyday the 13th&#8217;<br \/>\nKingXDragoon &#8211; &#8220;Pretty Fly for a dead guy\ufeff&#8221;<br \/>\nLaura Garrard &#8211; The Fungus Among Us!!\ufeff<br \/>\nLysiasolo &#8211; &#8220;Parafungal activity\ufeff&#8221;<br \/>\nDe paus van de Lilith Kerk &#8211; The whitecorpse horror (as an ode to HP Lovecraft &#8220;the Dunwich horror&#8221;)\ufeff<\/p>\n<p>&#8212;+ Thank you to our Top Patreon Supporters ($10+ per month)! <\/p>\n<p>Trae Wright<br \/>\nJustin Bull<br \/>\nBill Cass<br \/>\nAlice Kwok<br \/>\nSarah Khalida Mohamad<br \/>\nStefficael Uebelhart<br \/>\nDaniel Weinstein<br \/>\nChris B Emrick<br \/>\nSeghan Seer<br \/>\nKaren Reynolds<br \/>\nTea Torvinen<br \/>\nDavid Deshpande<br \/>\nDaisuke Goto<br \/>\nAmber Miller<br \/>\nCompanion Cube<br \/>\nWhatzGames<br \/>\nRichard Shalumov<br \/>\nElizabeth Ann Ditz<br \/>\nRobert Amling<br \/>\nGerardo Alfaro<br \/>\nMary Truland<br \/>\nShirley Washburn<br \/>\nRobert Warner<br \/>\njohanna reis<br \/>\nSupernovabetty<br \/>\nKendall Rasmussen<br \/>\nSayantan Dasgupta<br \/>\nCindy McGill<br \/>\nLeonhardt Wille<br \/>\nJoshua Murallon Robertson<br \/>\nPamela Parker<br \/>\nRoberta K Wright<br \/>\nShelley Pearson Cranshaw<br \/>\nKW<br \/>\nSilvan Wendland<br \/>\nTwo Box Fish<br \/>\nJohnnyonnyful<br \/>\nAurora<br \/>\nGeorge Koutros<br \/>\nmonoirre<br \/>\nDean Skoglund<br \/>\nSonia Tanlimco<br \/>\nGuillaume Morin<br \/>\nIvan Alexander<br \/>\nLaurel Przybylski<br \/>\nAllen<br \/>\nJane Orbuch<br \/>\nRick Wong<br \/>\nLevi Cai<br \/>\nTitania Juang<br \/>\nNathan Wright<br \/>\nSyniurge<br \/>\nCarl<br \/>\nKallie Moore<br \/>\nMichael Mieczkowski<br \/>\nKyle Fisher<br \/>\nGeidi Rodriguez<br \/>\nJanetFromAnotherPlanet<br \/>\nSueEllen McCann<br \/>\nDaisy Trevino<br \/>\nJeanne Sommer<br \/>\nLouis O&#8217;Neill<br \/>\nriceeater<br \/>\nKatherine Schick<br \/>\nAurora Mitchell<br \/>\nCory<br \/>\nNousernamepls<br \/>\nChris Murphy<br \/>\nPM Daeley<br \/>\nJoao Ascensao<br \/>\nNicolette Ray<br \/>\nTierZoo<\/p>\n<p>&#8212;+ Follow KQED Science and Deep Look:<\/p>\n<p>Patreon: https:\/\/www.patreon.com\/deeplook<br \/>\nInstagram: https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/kqedscience\/<br \/>\nTwitter: https:\/\/www.twitter.com\/kqedscience<br \/>\nKQED Science on kqed.org: http:\/\/www.kqed.org\/science<br \/>\nFacebook Watch: https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/DeepLookPBS\/<\/p>\n<p>&#8212;+ About KQED<\/p>\n<p>KQED, an NPR and PBS affiliate in San Francisco, CA, serves Northern California and beyond with a public-supported alternative to commercial TV, radio and web media.<\/p>\n<p>Funding for Deep Look is provided in part by PBS Digital Studios and the members of KQED.<\/p>\n<p>#fruitflies #deeplook<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Something is growing inside that fruit fly in your kitchen. At dusk, the fly points its wings straight up and <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2423580,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[627838],"tags":[1965,7808,14156,1543351,1543360,1543343,1543337,38076,1543359,1543345,76727,1543355,1543341,700437,121367,1543342,1543338,1543357,1543358,1543356,1543339,1543363,349229,6690,1543344,219499,235730,1543354,44446,1309389,1543362,1543347,1543348,69994,1543352,1543353,1543361,76508,62080,1543350,1543349,627860,1543346,34090,746928,12119,1543340,635376],"class_list":{"0":"post-2423579","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-model","8":"tag-4k","9":"tag-animals","10":"tag-bug","11":"tag-conidiophores","12":"tag-cordyceps","13":"tag-death-pose","14":"tag-deep-look","15":"tag-documentary","16":"tag-drosophila","17":"tag-drosophila-melanogaster","18":"tag-education","19":"tag-entomology","20":"tag-entomophthora-muscae","21":"tag-flies","22":"tag-fly","23":"tag-fly-destroyer","24":"tag-fruit-flies","25":"tag-fruit-fly","26":"tag-fruitfly","27":"tag-fungi","28":"tag-fungus","29":"tag-gravitactic","30":"tag-insect","31":"tag-insects","32":"tag-kitchen-flies","33":"tag-last-of-us","34":"tag-macro","35":"tag-mind-control","36":"tag-nature","37":"tag-parasite","38":"tag-parasites","39":"tag-parasitic","40":"tag-parasitic-fungus","41":"tag-pbs","42":"tag-pest","43":"tag-pest-control","44":"tag-pests","45":"tag-research","46":"tag-science","47":"tag-secondary-spores","48":"tag-spores","49":"tag-supermodel","50":"tag-vinegar-fly","51":"tag-wild","52":"tag-wildlife","53":"tag-zombie","54":"tag-zombie-fungus","55":"tag-635376"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wacoca.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2423579","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wacoca.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wacoca.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wacoca.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wacoca.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2423579"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.wacoca.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2423579\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wacoca.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2423580"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wacoca.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2423579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wacoca.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2423579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wacoca.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2423579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}