The Last Of Us has mad audiences wary of eating mushrooms, but how realistic are the cordyceps spores shown on the hit HBO horror show?

Then - in a scene more disturbing than the scariest horror film - a tendril of death erupts from the head. This fruiting body of the fungus showers spores ... can invade the blood, nervous system ...

In mice, when white blood cells in the lungs engulf spores of a common airborne fungus, these immune cells release an enzyme that sends the fungal cells into programmed cell death. That prevents ...