• Question: Are there mind controlling bug viruses in the world?

    Asked by to Edward, Ian, Mathew, Naomi, sakshisharda on 17 Jun 2014. This question was also asked by .
    • Photo: Ian Stephenson

      Ian Stephenson answered on 17 Jun 2014:

      sort of… there’s a fungus which rots the brains of ants, and makes their zombie corpses walk around to find the best environment (light/shade/humidify/food sources) for the fungus…

    • Photo: Naomi Osborne

      Naomi Osborne answered on 17 Jun 2014:

      great question and the answer is yes! There are mind-controlling parasites – there’s one which infects mice as part of its life cycle and makes them fearless of cats, which is the parasite’s ultimate host.

      scientists are currently looking at how our own gut bacteria (there’s over 100 trillion of them) affect our behaviour. In mice born with no gut bacteria, they are less anxious than those with gut bacteria.

      How bacteria and parasites affect our behaviour is such a fascinating subject – it would also be fantastic job researching in this area – maybe you could one day do it!

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