If The Last of Us made you wonder whether climate change could turn fungi into a serious threat to humans, the folks from SciShow are here with a fascinating and slightly unsettling answer.
In their latest video, they visit Duke University researcher Asiya Gusa, who studies how fungi such as Cryptococcus are adapting to a warming world.
Our body temperature is one of the reasons fungal infections aren’t more common: most fungi prefer cooler environments and struggle to grow at around 37°C. But as temperatures rise, some fungi may be adapting to heat that once kept them away from us.
Gusa’s research has found that Cryptococcus can mutate much faster under heat stress, with mutation rates increasing dramatically at human body temperature. Some of those changes involve “jumping genes” that can alter the fungus’s DNA and potentially contribute to drug resistance.
And that’s only part of the story.
The SciShow team also explores Gusa’s fungal biobank, samples collected after Hurricane Helene, the search for new antifungal treatments, and even fungi that might help us break down plastics.
So while we probably don’t need to prepare for mushroom zombies just yet, there are some very real reasons scientists are watching fungi as our planet warms.
Check out SciShow’s informative trip into the world of fungi and find out what researchers are discovering before these tiny organisms become a much bigger problem.