The zombies living in our midst

Short Wave

NPR

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

4.7 • 6.5K Ratings

🗓️ 25 October 2021

⏱️ 10 minutes

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Summary

The idea of human zombies probably seems pretty far-fetched. But there are real zombies out there in the animal kingdom. To kick off Halloween week, science writer Ed Yong of The Atlantic creeps us out with a couple of examples. Hint: they involve fungus. (Encore episode)

Read more of Ed's reporting on:
- The zombie fungus controlling ants' brains: https://bit.ly/2Zk79nA
- How to Tame a Zombie Fungus: https://bit.ly/3E13QAc

Haunted by other creepy crawlies in the animal kingdom you think we should know about? Please email the show at shortwave@npr.org — we'd love a little afternoon fright!

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Transcript

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0:00.0	We're here to talk to you.
0:04.1	For a beer.
0:12.6	Happy Halloween everybody.
0:14.2	Get excited because today we are getting creepy.
0:17.4	We're getting crawly and we're talking zombies.
0:23.1	Humans have been fixated on zombies for a long time.
0:27.9	It's the night of the living dead.
0:32.5	The walking dead.
0:33.5	You know about the dead people, right?
0:36.0	The walkers.
0:38.8	Now clearly we've never had a big zombie human situation, but there are zombies in the animal
0:45.0	kingdom.
0:46.0	For example, zombie fungus, a parasite that takes over the bodies of insects to do their bidding,
0:53.6	which is why we brought in Ed Young, science reporter at the Atlantic and Halloween Super
0:58.6	Fan.
0:59.6	What's your favorite Halloween candy?
1:01.6	I don't have any.
1:03.3	What?
1:04.3	I don't do Halloween.
1:05.3	I'm British.
1:06.3	We hate fun.
1:07.3	Ed's written all about the fungus that walk amongst.
	...

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