Summary: Zombies are REAL! Episode 29 by Jennifer Gagné (Click here to directly access the MP3) (Access the full text transcript) BRAINS! Nature is scarier than fiction, with all sorts of examples where one species “zombifies” another in the process of reproduction. Zombie ant fungus, cat parasites that zombify rats, zombie crab body snatchers… Science is especially spooky on Halloween! Happy Halloween, everyone! Listen to the Podcast for more… Truly bizarre and amazing, check out the Cordyceps fungus turning ants (and other insects) into its very own ZOMBIES! Check these out for more information: Hidden Diversity Behind the Zombie-Ant Fungus How Your Cat Is Making You Crazy Body Snatching Barnacles and Zombie Crabs Jennifer Gagné is a trained journalist, who decided politics weren’t for her, but quantum mechanics was. After school, she peeked into a newsroom, but decided to find something a bit closer to her love of science. She is currently basking in knowledge at TRIUMF, Canada’s national lab of particle and nuclear physics, where she gets to nerd out as a communicator of science. She is also an alumna of the Banff Science Communications Program, where she found her kinfolk. Outside of her day job, she tells people stories of giant whales at the Beaty Museum, and tends to her pet Henry, an iron clad beetle that lives on her kitchen table and eats apples.
