Could There Be A Fungal Zombie Apocalypse?

function in nature? How much do humans need to fear the fungus? Discover this and more as we answer the agele question, can ants contemplate the horrors of their existence? Joining me to help answer these questions is Infectious Diseases doctor and self described budding mycologist, Professor David Boulware. Welcome, Hey, it's great to be here. Thank you for the invite. I really like how you call yourself a budding my collogists, don't think I miss that little fungus pun. Oh, it's

it is. I'm still budding. I think there's a lot to learn. I think that's that's really what the pun is about. There's a lot to learn about fungus, and so I'm still learning along the way. I mean, absolutely, I am also learning about fungus. I'm by no means a fungal expert. I do know specifically about ophio Cortis ups because of how famous it is in terms of its effects on ants. But fungus is it is such a I mean, first of all, it's an incredibly diverse

group of organisms. So a you have just by knowing one type of fungus. It's not like you know the entire fungal uh you know group. It's They're very diverse, and they're all they all function in very weird and different ways. I don't know how anyone can ever have a total mastery over fungus. Yeah, I certainly talent. Unfortunately, the majority of you know, fungus doesn't cause disease in humans.

There's you know, hundreds and millions of species of fungi which are distinct from plants and distinct from animals in their own kingdom, but only handful of them actually cause pathologic disease in humans, right, Yeah, I think that is really important to note. It's not as if they are all out to get us. It's kind of like when people think of bats as being all these blood sucking, bloodthirsty little creatures, and it's like the majority most bat

species are either nectivorous, frugivorous, or insectivorous. There's only one or two species that actually drink blood, and so they get this like creepy bad rap. But most of them are not what people think. And it's the same thing with fungus. They most fungus is good, I mean or neutral. It's not. It's not something we have to worry about. So in the very popular TV so it actually came from a video game called The Last of Us. It

depicts a pandemic zombie apocalypse. The fungus in the show a species of Ophio corticeps contaminated food at a serial factory I think in Jakarta and then spread globally when people ate the contaminated food. This is all fictional. Don't don't panic. People started showing signs of aggression, biting or killing others. There's a mycologist in a show that determined

it was ophiocorticeps, which typically infects arthropods. So arthropods are invertebrates like insects and spiders, and then it takes control

of their behavior of their bodies. But somehow, in this fictional world, the ophio CORTESEPS jumps to humans, infects humans, takes over their brains, and drives people to violently kill or bite other people that's infecting them, you know, the classic zombie trope and the infect kind of a twist on that those that the infected humans slowly become subsumed

by this fungus, becoming coated and fungus. It's kind of funny because when I look at the visuals of the show, kind of looks like not just one species of fungus, it looks like all sorts of different species covering. I mean, for the visual impact, I think it is cool, if not a little bit unrealistic. But yeah, it's just that their whole bodies get covered in this fungus and then they spread it through biting people or like I guess, kind of mouth to mouth filament transmission, which is an

interesting twist on it. Have you seen the show at all, Doctors, Yeah, I really, I have not seen the show. When it came out, I was I was out of the country, and I have not gone back to track of Town and lash it. So, but I've heard a lot about it, so it seems very entertaining. You know, maybe not factually accurate, but you know that's it's entertainment value. Yeah, exactly. I mean I could still enjoy it, even though throughout the first episode I kept leaning over to my husband and

commenting like, now that doesn't make sense. Now that doesn't make sense, But you know it's I still really like that they incorporate some act, like some reference to an actual fungus. That's that's neat. I think it makes people curious about that kind of thing and then want to find out more about it, which is what we are going to try to do. So. Ophio corteseps. Is a real genus of fungus and a fascinating one that we've talked about on the show before, but it is not

quite as the HBO show depicts it. So the most famous species of ophio corteseps is Ophiocortops unilateralists. It is also called the zombie ant fungus, and it is indeed exceedingly spooky. It is found in tropical forests all over the world and infects ants of a specific species Camponotus leonardi. While they can infect other species of ants, the fungus

are most optimized for this one. So while foraging on the forest floor, and ant will pick up spores like little pieces of lint on its body, and the spore uses enzymes to break down the ants exoskeleton and it works its way into the ant's body, which is a kind of exfoliation that you definitely don't want in this situation. These spores will develop inside the ant's body into fungal growths and infect the ants soft tissues, but not necessarily

its brain. That's something of a misconception. While it does seem to alter the ants central nervous system, it doesn't require the fungus to actually be growing inside of its brain. It's infiltrating all of the ants soft tissues. It can also it can grow like in its head, but it's not necessarily a physical presence in the brain that is causing the ant's behavior to be modified. It as these

compounds that the fungus is releasing. So some of the behavioral modifications that will happen is that the ants will convulse and fall from the tree where usually their nest is, onto the forest floor. Then the ants will climb up a plant stem. They will grip onto the underside of the leaf. Usually there's like a vein on the underside of the leaf that they clamp down on with its mandibles, specifically on the north side of the plant, which is interesting.

There's some speculation that it optimizes where it grips for moisture levels and temperature being ideal for the fungus. And it will stay there until the fungus overcomes the ant and kind of grows into this. You know, it looks very creepy, this sort of ant covered in fungus gripped onto this leaf. The Ophio cortu SEPs universe salus will grow its hypha into the ant and are these branching

vein like structures of a fungus. They're also known as filaments, which allows the fungus to expand and transport nutrients, and a group of hype is called micellium. The ant becomes overwhelmed by the mycelium, which also roots the ant to the leaf, and then finally, after around four to ten days, a fruiting body or bodies will grow from the ant, which looks like a little stem with a bulb on

top and then that will distribute the spores. So while this fungus is called the zombie ant fungus, once the ant is dead, it's just dead. It's not gonna reanimate this, this dead ant. So do we so, doctor Will, Where do we see any kind of fungus like this in humans that takes like takes over our brains and our bodies and controls us in this way? Oh exactly. I mean, there are certain types of fungus that can cause infections of the brain, and they can alter people's behavior certainly,

but usually they just make people really really sick. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I it is. And one thing that's interesting to me is that this is definitely a scary thing that is real, right, this is a real fungus. But the only animals it seems like that it seems to have this kind of

specific control over are arthropods insects. And so is it when we see something that impacts an arthropod or an insect or a spider, like, how how typical is it for diseases or something that is like zoonotic to originate from an insect versus something that is closer to us On the evolutionary tree. Yeah, so a lot of things, A lot of fungus can affect cold blooded animals and

cold blooded you know, insects, etc. And Um. One of the theories behind why why are mammals warm blooded is that that the temperature difference protects us against bungal diseases. And so that's sort of one of the hypotheses and theories of why sort of mammals sort of um escaped after sort of you know, sort of the great sort of the dinosaurs and sort of um, you know, the meteorites sort of striking your earth and sort of causing sort of dust clouds and all the plants dying off.

And with that, then, uh, fungus is sort of a big part of decaying plant matter, and so breaking down plants and sort of that that process of decay is what funge i normally do in the environment. And so one of the theories of why then mammals sort of exploded and sort of took off after that is the temperature difference. Being warm blooded protects us from fungus because most fungus does not grow very well at ninety eight

degrees and temperature. That's really interesting, I mean, it kind of makes sense too, then that when we see this specific ant controlling behavior or something like opio corti SEPs, it actually directs the ant to a very specific part of the forest floor. It's not content to just infect the ant wherever it is and the ant, you know,

sprouts the fruiting body. It has evolved to kind of modulate the ant's behavior in such a way that the ant goes to like the underside of a leaf somewhere, whether there's the right amount of humidity, the right temperature, because really it wants kind of a ideal environment for itself. So to somehow be able to jump to a human and infect a human, it would require that it overcome this need for this very specific temperature range. And it seems that seems quite difficult to make such a leap.

It does, and so most most fungus doesn't do that. But you know, one of the concerns with global warming is that the ambient temperature yeah in the environment humans and many places of the globe is coming closer and closer together. Such things that can live in the environment quite happily, there may be a selection pressure where they

can jump to humans. And so at present, i'm in Minnesota, there's a big difference between ambi and temperature outside and the environment and what it is in the human body. But in other places around the world you've got high temperatures and so that that beer may be less. Yeah,

that's interesting. I mean we have seen that in animals where the changing climate will change a situation that that animal has with something like a bacteria from being basically they can sort of coexist to it overwhelming the animal, like the pyga antelope, which was able to co exist with with a bacteria that would live in they are these so pyga antelope are these really interesting animals. They

have these huge proboscuses. They it looks like the beginnings of an elephant, but then it just kind of stops. And you know these these proboscises are they breathe in a lot of air and they kind of like cool down the air or warm up the air, depending on like their needs. It's like a portable air conditioners slash

heater unit. And so in their noses like they would there's often like bacteria bacteria well like moist warm areas, but they were their immune systems are able to fight off the bacteria in their nose when it's at a certain level, but when it's above a certain level, they can no longer fight it off. And the temperature changed. The temperature just being a little bit warmer made conditions

a little bit better for this bacteria. And so you had whole herds of Siga antelope just dropping dead mysteriously. Like it was very, very creepy because you have this entire herd of antelope just dead on the ground and finding out that it's because well, the temperature is a little higher, so the bacteria was able to thrive a

little better. It is creepy and it is a little bit spooky, this idea that fungus uh, you know, if it is driven a little bit towards being able to exist in a warmer environment than it would potentially be more of a risk to humans. I very mention indeed, so that that's a little bit of a concern. And so some of the you know, environmental sort of um kind of explosion with like a fungus called a Canada orus in particular is one of those that's more thermotolerant

and um. And so one of the theories of why that's been selected out and is due to sort of the increase temperatures as well as sort of fun decide use a sort of in the environment and agriculture of anti fungal agents US used to protect crops. That's yeah, I mean, that's kind of reminds me of the we have a lot of concerns about the over use of antibacterials in antibiotics. But yeah, the overuse of anti fungals, I guess I that that concern I don't hear about

too much. But how big of a concern do you think that is? Well, there's a lot of different So for plants, if you think about your tomato plant, like, you can get sort of various sort of diseases and a lot of those are mold and fungus is basically that they can affect the plants, and so in agriculture, molds are big deal. Molds are a type of fungus, and so there are a number of different you know,

anti fungal properties. Um you know, compounds are used for agriculture, and so a lot of us are not used in humans, but but some of them actually are. They're in the same class that we use in humans. And so that that alarms me a little bit because we're starting to see more and more anti fungal resistance, and so with that, I would say, don't use compounds that are using humans

in agriculture. But that's all right, I'll stop doing that. Well, uh so we're going to take a quick break, but when we get act we will be talking about some of the claims that the HBO show makes about fungus and using that kind of as a jumping off point to talk more about the impacts that fungi can have on human health. So we are back, and I am very lucky to be joined by Professor David Bulware, who is an infectious diseases doctor with an acute awareness of

fungus and the risks of fungus. And I think that whenever people watch a show like The Last of Us, I mean, I think people know its fiction, people know it's science fiction, but it is it brings up these ideas of like of a fungal pandemic, and so sometimes the show will say things like in the beginning of the show, it talked about one of the dangers of this sort of outbreak of this fungus is that they have no treatments for fungal infections now before the break,

we just talked about the potential overuse of antifungals, So already that's not quite accurate, right, Like, it's not that we don't have anything that treats fungus. You can pick it up off the shelf of pharmacy. You can get you know, cream for athletes foot, which is a type

of anti fungal. Is that correct? Correct? There are a number of antifungal proper compounds and treatment summer creams, annointment that are topical, and there's a handful of them that they're used you know, orally or intravenously, but there's not that many real different therapies we have. And so there's maybe I don't know a douzend or so in total of different antifungal compounds that we use in humans, and

it's pretty it's a pretty limited scope. So maybe the nuance that is sort of lost a in the you know, zombie Apocalypse show is that yes, we do have treatments for a fungus, but maybe they're not as specified or as numerous as the treatments we say have for viral infections or bacterial infections. Well, we don't have that many treatments for viral infections, right, But we do have a lot of antibiotics, and so with UM you know, anti fungal you know medicines. There's sort of three or four

classes of antifungal medicines. Some of them are pretty toxic um you know, some of them are less toxic. But we do see resistance and we see some you know, some fungch eye that can be resistant to all three classes of antifungals. I see, And maybe we're not making that situation better if we overuse antifungals in agriculture. Well it's probably not super helpful, but I mean there are different antifungal things that are are not used in humans,

it can certainly be used in an cultures. So I think the same in um, you know, in live stock, of using the same antibotics that we use in livestock. You know, it's awesome major source of resistance. And in the US it's something about eighty percent of all antibotics or use in livestocking about twenty percent. This kind of

ties into this idea of the evolution of fungus. So something like in the show Ophio Corta SEPs starts out in arthropods, I don't know of any mammals really that ophio Corta SEPs effects, And so it seems to make this jump from arthropods to humans. Do you think that it's realistic from an evolutionary point of view for a fungus to jump from an arthropod like an ant to a human without kind of any evolutionary steps in between,

wellout a million years in between. Unlikely, But there are certainly, you know, fun fungi that do exist that can affect humans, And so I would be more concerned about sort of the current some of the current agents that we have, certain agents, but some of the current pathogens we have UM more so than some novel um fungus um coming out, although Candidaurus is somewhat of a novel fungus that has emerged and cause major problems and hospitals and healthcare centers

in some cases with outbreaks. I see, So, how recent is this one? And you call it candida urus and of orus like your ear orus? Okay, um uh, it's um. It's over the kind of the last decade where it's sort of emerged and um, and it's sort of niche is that it's anti it's anti fungal resistant UH and so and it tends to there's been sort of sporadic cases that have happened, and CDCs has tracked numerous outbreaks and sort of behaves kind of weird, you know, unusual

for for a fun guy. In what ways is it unusual? Well, that's more aggressive, and it's very hardy, where it's resistant not only to anti fungals but also to standard environmental cleaning and things like that. UM, some of the cleaning agents that it's it's pretty robust against. And UM. It's something that has caused certain problems and has sort of spread around the world from where when it was initially identified a little over a decade ago. And what kinds

of problems does it cause for humans? Like in terms of illness, Well, well, normally UM, particularly you know fun bunch I are really good at UM picking up basically people who have weakened immune systems, so people who are you compromised U. And that can be due to a variety of reasons. It can be due to you know, cancer, chemotherapy, volumearic transplantation and things like that can also be to

do hiv UM. But there's also a lot of new moncul antibodies that are used for rheumatology and other treatments U and so those supressed immune system in certain ways, and so that can predispose people to fungel infections. And so when you hear the TV commercials about it, if you've been exposed to tuberculosis or places where there may be fungel infections they're talking about, um, you know those

issues where it predisposes you to risk of infection. You know, for the most part, most fungi kind of affect immuno compromise people for the most part. There are some exceptions, however, and a couple of those exceptions are things what we term as endemic mycoses. They're sort of endemic to certain regions around the world, and they live in sort of the environment, but they can form spores and you can inhale those in and you can get sick even if

you're not immunocompromised. And so one of the more common ones is something called valley fever, which is a coucxidiorites mycosis. And so that's sense sort of the central Valley of California and in Arizona and kind of southwestern regions but also up as far north as Yakima in Washington, And so that's sort of inhaled spores that can cause a pneumonia and can cause serious disease in a subset of people.

Similarly in the Midwest, or something called histoplasmosis, which also has inhaled spore that you can be exposed to and can cause illness, serious illness and you know, kind of regular people. That's interesting because so there is this computer game that predated this show, and it actually did feature inhaling spores as being in a root of infection, whereas now it seems like the show emphasizes like being bitten

as a root of infection for fungus. Now, can you be like, can you get like a fungal infection through like an animal buy it or scratch or something. Is that like a typical root or is that more typically like a root for bacterial infection? Yeah, with with bites ut, it's a bacterial infection. You have a lot of bacteria that live in your mouth, and so that that's usually

bacteral infection. But you can't have sort of um and you know, if you had a stick or something that that pokes your post to your skin sort of a local, localized inoculation where you kind of have have stuck something into your skin, splinters or wood or something like that. Sometimes UM you can see local local actions. But the majority if of fundel infections are inhaled and so where you're inhaling the scores and so that's the majority of

infections that occur in humans. UM with funnel infections, that's usually the route of jury for most most fungus. So so far we don't have to worry too much about a biting zombie apocalypse. More like a floating cloud that we should avoid. Oh yeah, a windy day that that's good. But you know your your immune system and you know we've If you're exposed to to fungus and spores in the environment every day when you're outside on a windy day, and so it's usually it's not a big deal. Your

body's immune system takes care of it. You don't even know that you've been exposed. The exceptions would be if you're exposed to a lot all at once, or you're you're exposed to um to something to end your immune system as weekend. For some reason, well, that kind of reminds me of like the when house mold can actually

cause problems for people. So mold is a type of fungus. Uh, and so like something that may not be so much of a problem and say a wide open field or a bog where you're not you know, kind of you're in the open space, Like if it's in a home with not great ventilation, is that where you see maybe more problems with like inhalation of spores. Yeah, some people will particularly they can develop sort of an allergic response.

And so it's this hyper you know, kind of hyper response to certain molds and an as an allergy and so um with that that can trigger asthma, trigger others or respirae diseases. Um, that can serve as a trigger for that. And so certainly that that can be a case and is common um likely with with the trigger for a lot of people's asthma. Well, we are going to take another quick break, but when we return, we are going to talk about the likelihood of a brain

infection by a fungus. So your back right before the break. We're talking about like allergic reactions and that kind of reminds me of the one of the most the bane of my existence, at least is the fungus that causes dandruff because not everyone, like every the way I heard it, explain to me and correct me if I'm wrong about this, is that there are some very common fungi that are often found on humans, on people, and they often don't

cause problems. But some people have more of a reaction to that, and that can cause anything from like dandruff to other adverse skin reactions like exema, and I have had a lot of skin reactions or um, you know, sort of a scalp itchiness that I think I am particularly affected by this fungus. But um, so like it is that do people's reactions to fungus kind of very depending on you know, your immune system or just your

your your physiology. Yeah, dandrift can be caused by a fungus called Malsesia, which is a common thing that lives on people's skin. Yeah, some people that lives there and it's happy and it's just sort of present and not not a big deal. Some people will develop more of this, you know, more inflammatory hyper response to it and get dandrift and get suberic dermatitis and sort of other conditions that are a response to that. And so it's sort of the immune system's response to that fungi that can

cause inflammation. Yeah, so I I'm just unlucky that I can't be friends with this fungus that lives on my scalp and I have to kill it with the again a shampoo that has an antifungal in it. Which, so I do feel a little bit protected in a fungal apocalypse situation because I would just use my anti fungal mpoo on these. I'm not sure if that's kind of

really work too well for you. Probably probably okay with preventing your zombie apocalypse as long as it is a zombie apocalypse caused by really itchy zombies with seboric dermatitis. So U but that these are like a lot of the fungal infections that are most commonly known like um athletes, foot candida, you know, like seboric dermatitises are all. There

are more topical infections. We did talk a little bit about inhaled spores that can cause um, you know, respiratory issues, but uh, it seems like it's pretty rare for something like a fungal infection too. I mean, for most types of infection to reach the brain is quite rare because we have the blood brain barrier, the brain is quite well protected. But sometimes things do actually reach the brain. And there is I only know of one actually through

your twitter, which is cryptococcal meningitis. So can you talk a little bit about this form of infection. Yeah, so cryptococcus. It's another yeast, So Cryptcoccus neoformans is. It's a common thing. Once again, it's in the environments. Everyone is sort of exposed to it and you live your life happily ever after and you never know you've been exposed to it.

If you become immunocompromise or once again, if you're exposed to a lot all at once, some people can get pretty sick, and so some people will throughout pneumonia, But the most sort of fear complication is meningitis, where the fungus basically disseminates from the lungs through your blood stream throughout the whole body, but also into your brain and can sort of lodge into the blood vessels of your brain.

And there's a couple different theories of how it crosses the blood brain barrier, but it gets into the brain and surrounds the brain and when it surrounds the brain, it kind of plugs up the absorption of how your your spinal fluid is absorbed, and so it kind of it's like a clug sync where this sort of backs up, and so it creates a high pressure around your brain which sort of slowly crushes your brain. Which sounds terrible,

and it very much is terrible. And so it's a slow growing infection, unlike a lot of bacterial meningitis, and so it's something that develops over days to weeks, two months, and so people will eventually show up to healthcare just complain of this unrelenting headache, that this is terrible, and so it's it's a pretty unpleasant disease. I would say, yeah, So I mean, is this something that it can be fatal? It certainly can be fatal. It's probably one of the

more fatal fungal infections. It's also highly treatable. And so you know, among our patients and our sort of clinical trials and things like that, about ninety percent of people can can survive and do well a long term. But you know, without that sort of with expert care and then sort of a fair number of resources and more routine care fatality rates can be you know, forty percent or higher. Yeah, I mean, that's I think it is.

It's interesting that we actually do have like the I guess, quite frightening diseases like a brain infection caused by fungus, but then we have treatments for it, hopefully treatments that people can have access to. I know that that can be a problem, of course, getting people access to these treatments.

I think that is something that I find interesting in terms of these more apocalyptic movies, the idea that when we're faced with something we haven't seen before, that we have no tools at our disposal, whereas well, I mean what we've seen with like the coronavirus pandemic. Yes, we didn't have a treatment at the beginning, but we developed the treatment. And the idea that somehow society would break down before we even could begin to start any kind

of intervention, to me is not super likely. I mean, what do you think, Yeah, fortunately decided to not break down. It wasn't wasn't quite obvious there for a while, but no, um, yeah, no, I think I think that you can see that with ingenuity and resources, and I mean there's a lot of smart people around the world that can work towards solving a problem. UM. And so oftentimes it's an issue of priority, prioritization UM. And in some cases it's about you know,

in our system, it's about the commercial market UM. And so can you make you know, can a pharmaceutical you know company make money off of a treatment? And so for a lot of you know, antibiotics and anti fungals UM, there's not a huge insensive UM for UM. You know, you can't make a huge amount of money off of

an antibiotic you take for two weeks, UM. Universes a medicine you take for the rest of your life, you know, you can make you a ton of money off of or a cancer therapy where you're on it for several

weeks or months. UM. And so there has been sort of a disincentive and sort of sort of disinvestments I'm not sure if that's a word, but under we'll say an underinvestment and new sort of antimicrobial agents, both for bacteria as well as for fungi and so UM so cryptococcus for instances considered sort of a neglected the neglected disease by the FDA. UM. And so there's some incentives and things that people can um and try to um you know, bring a new drug to market, and they

have sort of incentives to do so. UM. But's still it's a big it's a big reach. And so for um, you know, some diseases, well we have treatments for them, you know, like valley fever that's in California. UM with coxy UM. There are you know, cajet better treatments. And so I think we still need better treatments for a lot of the fungi just because the treatments are pretty

toxic that we have sometimes. So what you're saying is that medical care should be based on science and human health rather than profits, which I think is strange and interesting. Well it's it's you know, I think sometimes can you can you how do you allow the question is really you know, we live in a a capitalist society, and so how can you align profit motive to us as for innovation?

And so you know, we can have a new headache drug, or we have a new erectile dysfunction drug, but that's really not like probably the most really impactful thing for all of human health and existence, even though you can make a lot of money off of it. Yea and so um. And so the question is how, yeah, how do you kind of stimulate a for profit you know, pharma system to also consider other things which are in

the public good. I mean, maybe make them watch The Last of Us and scare them and tell them, yes, this could definitely happen if we don't start developing new

anti fungals. I'll try that suggestion. I'm not sure that will work, but that there are some things in the pipeline then, and there are a lot of this goes back to basic science and stuff of like people working in time tubes and sort of you know, in mouse models and sort of all the sort of basic science stuff to identify a new targets and so those targets can be moved forward and looked at what if you

block that target? And so it is kind of a long road of taking you know, a concept to them like into a drug trial, and in humans is a long long road that can take you know, decades or more sometimes. Yeah, so we yeah, it is. It is something that we really have to incentive. I hate the

word incentivize, but yes, incentivized, push push towards doing um. Well, before we go, is there anything that you want would like people to know about fungus or the relationship between fungus or and human health, or or why you're interested in mycology. Well, I think you know funch I are diverse,

you know organisms and so um. One of the more common ones that that people might be familiar with is U sacrimicy serve, which is brewers y east, which is used and you don't have to make wine to make you know, flour and baking and so there are good things and there's good properties that have been developed with with some yeast. Most of these living environment and don't cause any human disease and they're part of through of the natural process of decaying um, you know, dead and

dyeing plant matter and and I guess animal matter as well. Um. But there are a handful that certainly can cause serious disease and they can be highly fatal, and we certainly

do need more better therapies. But yeah, people are working on those, but it's kind of a slow, slow slog often and so you know, I'm I don't know, I guess halfway through my career, but I still consider myself a budding mycologists and still learning along the way of all the interesting things that these organisms can do um and how best we can help people with these affections. So don't judge a fungus by its cap is sort of the lesson here. Or should we sometimes? I don't know.

I've never picked a wild mushroom and tried to eat it because I cannot judge emotion by its cap responsibly without maybe poisoning a help I think that's probably a good analogy. Some can be wonderful and some will feel you well, thank you so much for joining me today, Professor David Bolware, and for answering my questions. That's that's pleasure to be here. Thank you for the vict