The Fungal Science Behind HBO's 'The Last of Us'

Short Wave

NPR

Daily News, Astronomy, Nature, News, Life Sciences, Science

4.7 • 6.6K Ratings

🗓️ 21 February 2023

⏱️ 13 minutes

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Summary

The video game series that spawned the new hit HBO drama, The Last of Us, is the zombie genre with a twist. Instead of the standard viral pandemic or bacterial disease that's pushed humanity to the brink, but a fungus that has evolved to survive in human bodies in part due to climate change.

Short Wave's Aaron Scott talks with fungal researcher Asyia Gusa about the science that inspired The Last of Us and the real threats fungal researchers see in the ever-warming world.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to Shortwave from NPR.
0:06.2	The first episode of HBO's hit news zombie show, The Last of Us, opens with two scientists
0:11.9	being interviewed on a talk show in the 1960s.
0:15.2	And Dr. Newman, you're also an epidemiologist.
0:17.7	I presume the prospect of a viral pandemic keeps you up at night as well.
0:21.0	No.
0:22.0	No?
0:23.0	All right, well, that's our show.
0:24.0	It sets up that this show is going to be zombies with a new twist.
0:28.6	Not bacteria.
0:29.6	Not viruses.
0:30.6	So fungus.
0:32.6	Fungi seem harmless enough.
0:34.4	Many species know otherwise because there are some fungi who seek not to kill, but to
0:39.8	control.
0:40.8	When I saw the opening few minutes, I nearly jumped off the couch and was yelling at
0:44.3	the screen.
0:45.3	This isn't like what I study.
0:46.8	This is Asya Gusa, a fungal researcher at Duke University.
0:50.4	What threatens him the most is the idea of fungi, evolving to be thermally adapted to survive
0:56.8	at human body temperature and cause disease.
1:00.2	And that's the biggest pandemic that he's worried about.
	...

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