Fungal Pathogens Are Mutating Dangerously as The World Gets Hotter ( www.sciencealert.com )

Like a nightmarish, post-apocalyptic plot, rising temperatures are causing fungi to mutate in ways that not only make them hyper-infectious but drug-resistant, too.

This is deeply concerning as our world warms, Nanjing Medical University researcher Jingjing Huang and colleagues warn.

“The danger and importance of new fungal pathogens is believed to be seriously underestimated,” they write in their new paper.

“Temperature-dependent mutagenesis can enable the development of pan-drug resistance and hypervirulence in fungi, and support the idea that global warming can promote the evolution of new fungal pathogens.”

SugandeseDelegation ,
@SugandeseDelegation@lemmygrad.ml avatar

Nanjing Medical University

I'm sure the chuds will have a completely normal one when they read this

"it's another seeseepee bioweapon like covid!!11!!"

201dberg ,
@201dberg@lemmygrad.ml avatar

I saw this on the "collapse" subreddit or something similar. In general, the area I live in has always had issues with molds and it's getting worse every year. Things go bad super fast. Food from the grocery store and such. If you make anything homemade, with no crazy preservatives, it's growing mold in a few days. I blast UV-C light in my shower every night to keep it from growing mildew in-between cleans. I honestly don't even want to think about what it's doing to my body and lungs.

SugandeseDelegation ,
@SugandeseDelegation@lemmygrad.ml avatar

That's insane... It's already quite bad where I am but what you're describing sounds like a nightmare comparatively. Is it a very humid environment?

201dberg ,
@201dberg@lemmygrad.ml avatar

Yes. Very humid. Our air is basically mold spores.

redtea ,

Could you use a dehumidifier with a filter?

201dberg ,
@201dberg@lemmygrad.ml avatar

It's not the humidity inside. It's the humidity outside. Every air quality report in this area has mold at the highest levels 8 months out of the year. It's unavoidable. Our air quality is so bad that when you travel to other parts of the country you can feel a difference in your breathing. People I this area have a statistically higher rate of lung diseases.

redtea ,

Oh I see. That's a hard problem to address.

rainpizza OP ,
@rainpizza@lemmygrad.ml avatar

I hate the subreddit filled with eco fascists. However, I saw this news in that place too. Thought it will be worth sharing here as well.

redtea ,

Does the uv-c thing work? How do you set it up?

201dberg ,
@201dberg@lemmygrad.ml avatar

Yes, UV-C bulbs fuck mold. I have one that creates ozone and one that doesn't. The ozone bulb scares me but holy hell does it work well. I grew psychedelic mushrooms for about 18 months once and turned one of the rooms in my house I to a clean room. Never had any kind of mold contamination. The downside to the ozone is, other than being bad to breath, it corrodes stuff and will kill electronics. I had a router in the clean room and it died in like 4 months of running the bulb for 15 minutes a day. I eventually just started only using the non-ozone generating bulb. I don't grow anything like that anymore so I just run it in the bathroom for like 30 minutes a night.

I attach them to an old swing arm lamp so I can direct them if need be or just point it straight up to hit the whole room. I used it a lot during COVID and ran it over all our groceries and stuff. For a few minutes. I have UV glasses and would cover my skin. I would not even go in a room with the ozone bulb. Shits dangerous. I use them with extreme caution.

They look like this
https://lemmygrad.ml/pictrs/image/e104a792-6284-4b69-96e8-f88c3f105be5.webp

redtea ,

Wow! There's useful to know. I don't think I'll risk using one in general because a simple dehumidifier is enough to keep the mold away in my place. But I'll look into it further if I have to live somewhere that's riddled with the stuff.

ahriboy ,
@ahriboy@lemmygrad.ml avatar

One thing that everyone should not deny, and it's climate change.

ksynwa ,
@ksynwa@lemmygrad.ml avatar

I guess this is another path climate catastrophe can take. Before the "natural" disasters arising from increased temperatures, some weird pathogen obliterate us instead.

Ocommie63 ,
@Ocommie63@lemmygrad.ml avatar

If smallpox, the black death, the white death, or any other plague couldn’t make us extinct then I don't see how a new plague would make us extinct either.

ComradeSalad , (edited )
@ComradeSalad@lemmygrad.ml avatar

Society is much more integrated then it was in those times. If 30% of the worlds population died today in a similar way to what happened during the Black Death there would be a massive chance that most countries would simply collapse, or see mass famine, essential goods shortages, medicine shortages, and so on.

It wouldn’t drive us extinct, but civil collapse would be a bleak and miserable existence.

Ocommie63 ,
@Ocommie63@lemmygrad.ml avatar

True but in the end Im confident that we would rebuild

ComradeSalad ,
@ComradeSalad@lemmygrad.ml avatar

True, but billions would still die and we would probably be set back decades, if not centuries.

Collatz_problem ,

On the other hand, probability of communist revolution would be high. :posadas:

ComradeSalad ,
@ComradeSalad@lemmygrad.ml avatar

At that point isolated anarchist communes would be more likely then anything. There really wouldn’t be much of society left to make communist.

When society starts to rebuild I can definitely see it coming back as communist however.

Or the dolphins can start their Revolution. Either or.

ksynwa ,
@ksynwa@lemmygrad.ml avatar

This time epidemics have a new ally. The capitalist parasitic overlords who will throw us in a cesspool of diseases for a dime.

Ocommie63 ,
@Ocommie63@lemmygrad.ml avatar

So did the black death with the feudal lords, and all the uncleanly nature of cities that they allowed

redtea ,

I look forward to our new fungal overlords replacing our capitalist parasite overlords.

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • •
  • random
  • science@lemmygrad.ml
  • test
  • worldmews
  • mews
  • All magazines
    •