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Showing posts from April, 2010

Fungal Insanity Ants and Me

A while ago, as part of the internet’s Attention Deficit Education, I watched a short video about a kind of fungus that infects the brains of ants in the jungle. The fungus grows in the ant’s brain, eventually driving him crazy and forcing him to climb upward. When the ant reaches the very top limb of a tree his head basically explodes, releasing fungal spores which spread in all the directions of the wind. The spores infect other ants and, as with all things in nature, the cycle continues. After I got over the initial “Holy crap,” level of astonishment, I started wondering what it must be like to be driven upward by some mysterious internal force. At first I could hardly believe that a creature's brain could be affected in such a specific way. But I was forced to revise my opinion tonight not long after I walked out of my apartment. I was reminded, in fact, that that feeling was something with which I am very familiar. It started because I had noth...