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If Fungi Win, Will We Be Ready?
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Fungi and Dinosaurs: A Cold-Blooded Connection
Fungi thrive mainly in cooler environments, which can affect their impact on different species. Dinosaurs, being more cold-blooded, were less resistant to fungal outbreaks, potentially leading to their demise in ways not seen in mammals. In contrast, mammals, including humans, can withstand higher temperatures, making it difficult for about 80% of fungi to survive at their body temperature. This highlights the importance of body temperature in the interaction between species and their vulnerability to pathogens.
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just, verdant, and peaceful world. More information is at MacFound.org. Okay, so Arturo's lab is at Johns Hopkins up in Baltimore. And Em and I drove up during one of these heat waves this summer, and we were greeted by Daniel Smith, a postdoctoral research fellow.
Speaker 1
Nice to meet you, Daniel. I'm Emily. It was truly so hot that day. And I was so hungry.
Speaker 2
And who are these cookies for? You
Speaker 1
spotted those cookies right away. I did. They were sitting out. I was like,
Speaker 2
I want to eat
Speaker 1
them.
Speaker 2
Yeah. But remember the other thing I spotted, Em, the door decoration.
Speaker 1
Yes. OK, so this was like a felt portrait hanging from the door that showed a dinosaur keeled over dead covered in mushrooms. With X's
Speaker 2
on its eyes.
Speaker 1
Yeah, and this implied, Daniel explained, that maybe some dinos met their demise at the hands of a fungal outbreak. At least that's his boss Arturo's theory.
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Since dinosaurs tended to be slightly more cold-blooded than mammals, they weren't as resistant to fungi because the fungi are not able to survive at mammalian body temperature.
Speaker 1
That's right. And we are mammals. So 80% of fungi cannot survive at the human body temperature of 37 degrees Celsius or 98.6 degrees, because most fungi die at that temperature,
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