The Playstation game The Last Among Us had a particularly novel explanation for the end of the world: a zombie apocalypse, yes, but one that's caused by a kind of fungus which attacks people's brains, taking it over with its spores and turning them into mindless, violent monsters. Which is probably not going to happen in real life. But according to David Wake, curator at the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology at the University of California, Berkeley, fungal threats might be even more troubling than other new life forms. There's something called the chytrid fungus that is currently decimating the frog population in the United States. Bully for them, eh? Much as its helped out humanity we don't have a monopoly on evolution, so there's a chance that a similar fungus could eventually develop that preys on people in a similar way. At least we have antibiotics and the like for other diseases. There's basically no preparation for a fungus that grows in our lungs and murders us.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
