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A fungus that infects cicadas and pushes their mating into hyperdrive

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Re: A fungus that infects cicadas and pushes their mating into hyperdrive

#11

Post by rvbissell »

vmception wrote: post #9

Sometimes I feel like we are sharing the world with fungus. As in, fungus consciously doesn't generate spores on us because it figured out that we will just grow it and put it in drinks and spread it any way. So using our mental processing power just let fungus realize it didn't have to try to use all its energy on the host capture and spore release routine. And of course, the observation that it has nothing to do wi…

Some podcast -- RadioLab I think -- did an episode on how climate change (specifically, warming) has been putting selective pressure on fungi to make them hardier towards infecting warm-blooded animals... at the very same time that the average human body temperature has been trending down.

Not a good thing.

Re: A fungus that infects cicadas and pushes their mating into hyperdrive

#13

Post by neom »

"In yearly cicadas, the fungus makes them instead become hypersexual from psilocybin — the same chemical found in psychedelic mushrooms."

I don't understand what's being said here. The fungus causes them to eat magic mushrooms?

Edit: This is a better article: https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/07/massospo...

Re: A fungus that infects cicadas and pushes their mating into hyperdrive

#14

Post by [deleted] »

neom wrote: post #13

"In yearly cicadas, the fungus makes them instead become hypersexual from psilocybin — the same chemical found in psychedelic mushrooms." I don't understand what's being said here. The fungus causes them to eat magic mushrooms? Edit: This is a better article: https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/07/massospo...

[deleted]

Re: A fungus that infects cicadas and pushes their mating into hyperdrive

#15

Post by scarmig »

samatman wrote: post #8
bambax wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes I read this but it still needs some explanation. I can maybe understand that the infected insect still wants to mate even without genitalia, but why do the sane ones fall for it? I guess I need to learn more about cicada mating habits.

Consent to mate is in fact fairly distinctive to human beings. It's certainly not a concept which applies to insects such as cicadas, which just jump on each other and do the business.

Bedbugs are a particularly interesting species, in that they practice traumatic insemination[0]. The male, in order to overcome female resistance, rips through her abdomen to deposit his sperm. Large, confined bedbug colonies often go extinct for this reason: all the females end up dead from repeated traumatic insemination.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traumatic_insemination

Re: A fungus that infects cicadas and pushes their mating into hyperdrive

#16

Post by tastyfreeze »

vmception wrote: post #9

Sometimes I feel like we are sharing the world with fungus. As in, fungus consciously doesn't generate spores on us because it figured out that we will just grow it and put it in drinks and spread it any way. So using our mental processing power just let fungus realize it didn't have to try to use all its energy on the host capture and spore release routine. And of course, the observation that it has nothing to do wi…

What we consider lower forms of life have been around a lot longer than us. Fungus predate plants and originally ate minerals. They created the soil for plants to even evolve. Plants evolved in an environment created and controlled by fungus. Many plants have a symbiotic relationship with fungus. Entire ecosystems are connected and communicate by a mycorrhizal network. We owe our entire existence to fungus.

Re: A fungus that infects cicadas and pushes their mating into hyperdrive

#17

Post by samatman »

scarmig wrote: post #15
samatman wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consent to mate is in fact fairly distinctive to human beings. It's certainly not a concept which applies to insects such as cicadas, which just jump on each other and do the business.

Bedbugs are a particularly interesting species, in that they practice traumatic insemination[0]. The male, in order to overcome female resistance, rips through her abdomen to deposit his sperm. Large, confined bedbug colonies often go extinct for this reason: all the females end up dead from repeated traumatic insemination. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traumatic_insemination

Yep. Bedbugs are one of those species where I would have no objection at all to gene-driving them into oblivion.

Re: A fungus that infects cicadas and pushes their mating into hyperdrive

#18

Post by hinkley »

neom wrote: post #13

"In yearly cicadas, the fungus makes them instead become hypersexual from psilocybin — the same chemical found in psychedelic mushrooms." I don't understand what's being said here. The fungus causes them to eat magic mushrooms? Edit: This is a better article: https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/07/massospo...

Mushrooms are just the fruiting body. Fungal cells don't differentiate, so odds are good that if the mushroom gets you high, eating the dirt under the mushroom - where most of the fungus is - will also do the same thing.

If you were somehow infected by one of these mushrooms, you'd be tripping all the time, not unlike the people who have beer yeast in their GI tract are slightly inebriated every time they eat simple sugars.

Re: A fungus that infects cicadas and pushes their mating into hyperdrive

#19

Post by vmception »

jschwartzi wrote: post #10
vmception wrote: post #9

Sometimes I feel like we are sharing the world with fungus. As in, fungus consciously doesn't generate spores on us because it figured out that we will just grow it and put it in drinks and spread it any way. So using our mental processing power just let fungus realize it didn't have to try to use all its energy on the host capture and spore release routine. And of course, the observation that it has nothing to do wi…

Have you ever had athlete's foot or jock itch?

From what we can tell they don’t take us over and obviously change our behavior. Someone has to tell us they are on psychadelic mushrooms or took a cordyceps energy drink.

Skin infections occur.

Re: A fungus that infects cicadas and pushes their mating into hyperdrive

#20

Post by GauntletWizard »

neom wrote: post #13

"In yearly cicadas, the fungus makes them instead become hypersexual from psilocybin — the same chemical found in psychedelic mushrooms." I don't understand what's being said here. The fungus causes them to eat magic mushrooms? Edit: This is a better article: https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/07/massospo...

Psilocybin is the active ingredient (a psychedelic prodrug, or drug precursor that's metabolized into a drug) in Magic Mushrooms. The fungus generates psilocybin and sheds it into the cicada, causing them to become hypersexual.
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