How to Tame a Zombie Fungus
In the summer of 2015, at a scientific conference in New Hampshire, I was chatting with a biologist named John McCutcheon when an excited young Japanese researcher came up and introduced himself. His name was Yu Matsuura, and like McCutcheon, he had been studying the microbes that live inside cicadas—stout bugs that are known for their loud songs. He had found something that was about to blow McCutcheon’s mind.
Cicadas feed on plant sap—a diet that’s high in sugar, but low in other essential nutrients. The cicadas cope with the help of domesticated bacteria, which live inside their cells. and . But in most of the Japanese species that Matsuura studied, was missing. He couldn’t find any traces of its DNA.
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