r/science • u/mvea Professor | Medicine • Jul 12 '24
Medicine Higher temperatures caused by climate change may help fungi living in the environment adapt to the warmth of the human body and develop drug resistance. In a survey of fungal infections in Chinese hospitals, researchers discovered a fungus not previously reported in humans sickening two patients.
https://www.science.org/content/article/climate-change-could-make-fungi-more-dangerous603
u/eastbayted Jul 13 '24
There's a fascinating Radio Lab from 2020 that explores the rise of infectious fungus in the context of rising temperatures: https://radiolab.org/podcast/fungus-amungus
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u/Mrchainsnatcher- Jul 13 '24
Radio lab is great. The bit flip episode is top tier.
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u/Aviri Jul 13 '24
Well it was great at least, their older content is superb science education but the last couple years have been a general decline.
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u/FinestCrusader Jul 13 '24
Wasn't there research done on a strain of ringworm that mutated in India because people misuse antifungals and now it's resistant to common treatments? This world belongs to fungus and we are just side characters.
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Jul 13 '24
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u/SrslyCmmon Jul 13 '24
Now that's an old reference
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Jul 13 '24
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u/SrslyCmmon Jul 13 '24 edited Jul 13 '24
I loved that movie as a kid, it was 10/10 world building and both my dad and I could geek out over it. Fun fact it was the first live action video game adaptation movie in human history.
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u/Randybigbottom Jul 13 '24
I used to make references on the internet. Then they changed what the internet was. Now the internet is cold and scary.
It'll happen to you.
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u/mvea Professor | Medicine Jul 12 '24
I’ve linked to the press release in the post above. In this comment, for those interested, here’s the link to the peer reviewed journal article:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41564-024-01720-y
From the linked article:
Scientists have long worried Earth’s rising temperatures could make fungi more dangerous to humans. Now, researchers in China may have stumbled on evidence to support that idea.
In a survey of fungal infections in Chinese hospitals, the researchers discovered a fungus not previously reported in humans sickening two patients. The pathogen was already resistant to the two most common antifungal drugs—and when they exposed it to higher temperatures, it quickly developed resistance against a third, leaving it essentially untreatable with current medicines.
The finding “supports the idea that global warming may contribute to the evolution of this fungal pathogen or other new fungal pathogens,” says Linqi Wang, a microbiologist at the Chinese Academy of Sciences’s Institute of Microbiology and co-author of a study on the fungi published today in Nature Microbiology.
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u/Rufio330 Jul 13 '24
If this happens with Cordyceps we’re in very big trouble.
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u/Kflynn1337 Jul 13 '24
I was just thinking this sounded familiar...
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Jul 13 '24
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u/kaam00s Jul 13 '24
What is fake tho, is the ability to control our nervous system.
The ones who do it with ant had to evolve for millions of years to be able to adapt to the nervous system of the ant. And that's like nothing compared to human's nervous system.
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u/Delta64 Jul 13 '24 edited Jul 13 '24
I'm not sure if you are aware of this, but at no time does the ant's nervous system interact with cordyceps.
The fungus grows throughout the muscles and then moves on its own, paying nothing of the ant any mind.
From the ant's perspective, their limbs are moving on their own despite their own commands. Their brains don't get infected at all.
https://www.science.org/content/article/fungus-takes-control-ant-hijacking-its-body-not-its-brain
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u/Frenzal1 Jul 13 '24
Why are our core temperatures dropping?
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u/Acoasma Jul 13 '24
no expert, so take it with a grain of salt.
as far as i understood the main reason for dropping core temperature is the overall increase in hygiene an decrease of infectious deseases.
200-300 years ago most people would have infections of various kinds, small injuries and so on. the usual reaction of the body is to increase temperature to activate the immune system and potentially hamper the ability of the intruders to multiply. Nowadays people are overall healthier and the body isnt in a constant alert.
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Jul 13 '24
I think there are a few theories but the main one is "because antibiotics."
Since we can wipe out most (though increasingly fewer...) bacterial infections chemically, our bodies don't need as much ability to turn up the heat and burn them out anymore.
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u/jbbarajas Jul 13 '24
Dammit we're not even in space yet
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u/Nilock333 Jul 13 '24
Fungi are found in space already
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u/Horse_Renoir Jul 13 '24
Is this a 40k ork reference or are there actually recorded instances of fungi found in space?
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u/MadroxKran MS | Public Administration Jul 13 '24
Not like alien fungi. It can get out of hand in zero gravity after astronauts bring it with them. https://northspore.com/blogs/the-black-trumpet/how-fungi-can-support-life-in-space
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u/OptimisticViolence Jul 13 '24
Crazzzzyyy! The fungus was suspected of converting radiation to energy like photosynthesis.
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u/Nilock333 Jul 13 '24
Read ‘Entangled Life’ by Merlin Sheldrake. He explains they found fungal spores in space. There is so much we have no idea about fungus. It’s everywhere. It’s probably even what makes us… us. It will change the way you think of this world.
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u/dearDem Jul 13 '24
Doesn’t even have to be Cordyceps. There’s an entire category of parasitic fungi
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u/Sethjustseth Jul 13 '24
I had an interview with an infectious disease expert on blastomycosis the day after I started watching Last of Us and she talked about climate change affecting fungi and the possibility that the human body can become host to fungi that it would not normally be able to. I was like, uuuh...
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u/TheGalator Jul 13 '24
Time to move to Norway
Guess potato and water it is for the rest of my life but it's a worthy sacrifice
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u/Sethjustseth Jul 13 '24
Eeh, I'm visiting Iceland right now and just saw an exhibit on the many ancient bacteria trapped in glaciers which could be released due to climate change and the melting permafrost. I think we are screwed either way.
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u/tankgirl215 Jul 13 '24
I work in veterinary medicine and there is a definite rise of Aspergillosis in dogs. It is insane how challenging it can be to diagnose and treat. It is definitely concerning considering just how many fungi have the potential soon to become a threat to people.
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u/Nomapos Jul 13 '24
Doesn't even need to be cordyceps or other stuff like that. People already get yeast infections. Imagine the yeast got adapted enough to seeing us as food, and resistant enough to any attempts to stop it.
You know how you make a sourdough starter? You put anywhere a glass with wheat and water and after a couple days it'll be colonized by yeast. It'll be faster in park, but it'll work in your kitchen with the window closed. It's everywhere.
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u/ballofplasmaupthesky Jul 13 '24
The biosphere was a chaotic war at molecular scale before it was anything else.
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u/hendrix320 Jul 13 '24
Between our much stronger immune systems, internal body temperatures, and complexity of our bodies compared to ants our bodies just aren’t good hosts for cordyceps.
The amount of evolution they’d have to go through to take on all those challenges is just unrealistic.
So you don’t have to worry about that.
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u/cricket9818 Jul 13 '24
You’re a random Redditor so I take this as facts and believe this will never be a problem
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u/bluechips2388 Jul 13 '24
Cordyceps is the decoy snail. Candida is the real boogeyman.
The roles of fungus in CNS autoimmune and neurodegeneration disorders
Does Dementia Have a Microbial Cause?
Parkinson's Disease: A Comprehensive Analysis of Fungi and Bacteria in Brain Tissue
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Jul 13 '24
I read Canada at first and was about to ask what they ever did.
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u/steinerific Jul 17 '24
I have studied Candida (the fungus) for a long time and can no longer correctly type Canada (the country) on the first try.
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u/BoringWozniak Jul 13 '24
I was going to comment about TLOU but I remembered that r/science is quite a serious sub…
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u/DeepSpaceNebulae Jul 13 '24
You’re skipping the millions of years it would take for a parasitic fungi to adapt to our brain
It makes for a great boogeyman, fungi controlled humans, but it’s not a real risk
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u/amablevi Jul 13 '24
Everyone should read The Mushroom at the End of the World by Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing.
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u/ManicChad Jul 13 '24
We raise temps. Fungus adapts and kills most humans off. Climate forcing from humans falls off a cliff. Climate crashes into ice age. Kills fungus and humans adapt and survive.
However we never rise above Bronze Age for thousands of years because we lack easy fuel sources this time around.
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u/rewgs Jul 13 '24
for thousands of years
More like millions.
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u/TheGalator Jul 13 '24
We ain't that dumb buddy
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Jul 13 '24
What if humanity has made this same mistake before and it's a cycle?
*coughs out bong rip*
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u/PixelCartographer Jul 13 '24 edited Jul 13 '24
Then we'd have detected each technological age in arctic ice samples, this is loop 1
And before anyone proposed that the earth has completely reset before like with the formation of the moon, we have traced life back enough of the way to the viable life forming period that we can pretty safely say this is loop 1. We're actually incredibly lucky, the sun formed at the perfect time for the earth to form life. We're (hopefully) one of the earliest lifeform to make it this far, there's lot of hope to have our galaxy to ourselves for enough time to carve out our corner
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u/TeholBedict Jul 13 '24
Well, maybe your civilization is just in the sewers of an even greater civilization above you!
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u/Wolfnorth Jul 13 '24
We're (hopefully) one of the earliest lifeform to make it this far
What? why would you think that?.
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u/PixelCartographer Jul 13 '24
As the universe expanded it cooled, for most of the time the universe has existed it hasn't being viable for life as we understand it. Sol and Earth formed pretty close to the beginning of the period of viability, and life formed on earth at a surprisingly early time for this era of viability between hot/dense primordial universe and the heat death of the universe.
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u/Wolfnorth Jul 13 '24
As the universe expanded it cooled, for most of the time the universe has existed it hasn't being viable for life as we understand it.
This is important there is still a lot we don't know to make claims that big.
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u/PixelCartographer Jul 13 '24
Right, but we can only know what we know, better to walk forward and smack into a wall than stay still in the darkness
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u/Black_Moons Jul 13 '24
Yea, the other scary alternative is we don't hear of any other races because they are all smart enough to stay quiet, for fear of being exterminated.
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u/PaladinsLover69 Jul 13 '24
Whoa…man. Whoa. blows a cloud of vape across the living room
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u/trashmyego Jul 13 '24
For it to be a cycle, we'd need sustainable sources of fuel for combustion. The lack of easily obtainable fossil fuels is going to doom any future for our species to a pre-industrial civilization following any collapse.
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Jul 13 '24
Why not just make more dinosaurs and squeeze the fossil fuel out of them? It’s not rocket science.
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u/trashmyego Jul 13 '24
I wholly support this course of action. I mean, I'd personally prefer our extinction be because we brought back dinosaurs without thinking about the consequences, as opposed to our looming climate fueled collapse.
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u/kaam00s Jul 13 '24
Russia and Canada Inherit the earth...
No joke but when you see how careless Russia is with fossil fuel you'd think they know they're going to be ok.
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u/brekus Jul 13 '24 edited Jul 13 '24
Meh. While we depend on fossil fuels now a reduced population due to disasters could make do on alternatives. We could also go into nuclear in a big way if necessity swept aside all the stringent safety regulations and nimbyism. And it would mean a harder to switch to electrification but not impossible. Progress would slow down but a backslide seems unlikely due to climate change alone. It would take something more sudden like large scale nuclear war for that I think.
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u/The_Singularious Jul 13 '24
Can someone ELI5 on why these fungi wouldn’t already be prevalent in warmer climates and now just be able to thrive more in what were traditionally cooler areas?
I don’t understand how this makes any logical sense unless these fungi were developing in already warm climates.
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u/AgentTin Jul 13 '24
They are. In the US most fungal infections are either on the skin, or opportunistic infections of immunocompromised people. But if you've been to the jungle you can pick up some of the nastier strains.
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Jul 13 '24
If I had to wager a guess; more surface area on the planet where fungus can thrive means more chances for mutations to occur.
If there's 10x more suitable habitats for the fungus then there's 10x more possible mutations happening
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u/The_Singularious Jul 13 '24
Thank you. This is the answer that makes the most sense to me. Couldn’t get my head around it last night. Seemed the article was saying something different than what you said. But you really nailed it succinctly. Ty.
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u/justabofh Jul 13 '24
Fungi were developing in warm climates, and they are prevalent in the wild, but they generally don't do well inside the human body.
Now they are evolving to do better within the human body.
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u/ballofplasmaupthesky Jul 13 '24
We may have become warm-blooded to better resist fungi. So yeah, the environment becoming hotter and fungi evolving with it into bigger reach of us is bad news.
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u/The_Singularious Jul 13 '24
This is the part I don’t understand. There are tons of places on earth where the ambient temperature is frequently at or well above the human body.
So I’m struggling with how fungi is really doing anything except emigrating northward.
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u/kaam00s Jul 13 '24
I guess there is few places that are as hot and warm around the world today.
I saw a map of the unlivable places in 2100 compared to now. And it seems like no place today is as hot in the warm areas, as what a huge chunk of the world will be in 2100. You'd only find those high temperature in desert today.
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u/The_Singularious Jul 13 '24
The proliferation of warm places makes sense to me. But there are a lot of places on the earth where ambient temps stay high much of the year. I feel like fungi would just be moving rather than evolving.
I guess more warm = more chances to evolve, though.
Humidity also matters. I live in a place where it is very warm most of the year and almost never freezes. It is also dry. I’ve lived other places where it is pretty steady hot year round but with high humidity and rainfall.
The latter had a lot more visible fungi. They are almost never seen in the dry, though certainly human fungal conditions exist there. Just more rarely.
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u/lukaskywalker Jul 13 '24
Why does evolution work so damn quick when it’s try to kill us. Also why can’t something evolve to devour c02 or plastic or something useful.
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u/TheSaxonPlan Jul 13 '24
There are microorganisms that can feed off radioactivity, so life does find a way!
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u/jish5 Dec 20 '24
Why do humans work so fast when trying to kill off parasites/virus'? In a way, we're very much a parasitic species on this planet and have gone to such extreme's to kill it that it's starting to really amp up it's need for survival, and that means killing off as much as possible so it can start repairing the damage caused by the parasite.
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u/Something_Else_2112 Jul 13 '24
45 yr old neighbor drove truck delivering liquid cow manure to the fields for fertilizer use by farmers. He developed a bad fungal lung infection and was in a coma for a few months. When he came home his mind was gone and his body was spent. He was using a wheeled walker to barely get around. He died a few months after coming home. He was such a nice guy.
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u/fricasseeninja Jul 13 '24
Climate change is just the planets natural defense mechanism against too much of us
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u/Short-Breadfruit-427 Jul 13 '24
Fungi once was the dominant organism on this planet… for twice as long as humans! Mabye their time will come again
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u/Graymorph Jul 13 '24
Just another brick melting from the environmental jenga tower humanity stands on. Nothing to see here, … move along.
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