Showing posts with label Fungi. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fungi. Show all posts

Sunday, 16 February 2025

Malevolent Designer News - How a Fungus Makes Its Host Destroy Its Own Brain


Beauveria bassiana on unidentified insect.

© Lisa Bennett (CC-BY 4.0)
Fungus ‘hacks’ natural immune system causing neurodegeneration in fruit flies - University of Birmingham

If we are to believe creationists, their god created insects such as fruit flies, Colorado beetles, etc., and then set about devising ways to kill them with, amongst other pathogens, fungi that infect them and destroy them from inside.

One of the problems this supposedly intelligent designer had to overcome was the immune system it had given the insects in order to protect them from the pathogens it was designing to kill them.

According to an open access paper just published in PLOS Biology by a team led by Professor Alicia Hidalgo from School of Biosciences, The University of Birmingham, one species of parasitic fungus, Beauveria bassiana, cleverly turns its host's immune system against its host, making it destroy its own brain. Although this fungus does not affect mammals, so poses no threat to humans, the team warns that it is possible that another fungus could use a similar technique against mammals, including humans.
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