Meet the Scramblase-binding peptide (SBP)! We found that this Ophiocordyceps neuropeptide dysregulates olfactory systems in ants! 🐽 🐜

🧟🐜 Zombie Ant Research🚨

I can finally share my flagship research project characterizing the first ever Ophiocordyceps behavioral effector as an open access preprint!

This international, interdisciplinary research approach involved many amazing collaborations! 🧪

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

I am always excited to share about zombie fungi! 🧟‍♂️ 🍄‍🟫 Thanks to Natasha Dangoor for allowing me to contribute through an interview to her new piece in The Wall Street Journal about zombie spiders found in the UK! 🇬🇧 🧟🕷️. Link to the full article and audio translations in the comments 🧪

How about some spooky science! 🧟‍♂️ In this dispatch, I discuss the current state of molecular genetics work used to explore behavior-manipulating fungi and highlight new research by Zhao et al. describing a novel behavioral effector used by Cordyceps militaris in silkworms! 🧪
Link in the comments!

So excited to be partnering with University Museum Utrecht to debut our updated VR game about zombie ants! It’s an educational game that teaches about evolution, and will be free to download from both SteamVR and the Meta Horizon Store later this month. Just search “Zombie Ants VR” to find it! 🧪

The first night of Pint of Science if off to a fantastic start with a packed bar here in Utrecht! 🧪 🤩 @pintofsciencenl.bsky.social

I am very excited to host one of this year’s Pint of Science events in Utrecht, NL! Join us at Body Talk, May 21st, to hear about topics like gender neutral/non-binary language, fungal materials, and AI! Tickets and more information can be found here: pintofscience.nl/event/the-sp...

Very excited about this years @pintofsciencenl.bsky.social event in the Netherlands 🇳🇱!

@sj4k.bsky.social is back with another fantastic adaptation of our work with zombie ants 🧟🐜! always an amazing experience working with their crew ❤️! Making science easy to understand, what an important goal! 🌍

You can check out the full version here: www.sciencejournalforkids.org/wp-content/u...

I’m kicking off the new year with some great teaching news 🍎! My peer-reviewed lesson plan for how to use replica plating techniques to teach students about the evolution of antibiotic resistance has been published in CourseSource 🧫! You can find it open source here:

qubeshub.org/community/gr...

I love to collaborate with the Science Journal for Kids to make science more accessible for everyone! 🧑‍🧑‍🧒‍🧒 Here is an adaptation about the many different ways that zombie fungi are able to manipulate animal behavior! 🧠 You can read the full article here: www.sciencejournalforkids.org/wp-content/u...

Here is one of my latest DBER papers! 🍎 In this paper, we explore how social personality, particularly ones level of extroversion, impacts their learning in active learning environments! 🧑‍🏫 You can read the full article here: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Here is one of my latest publications on zombie ants! 🐜 In this paper, we show how Ophiocordyceps may use aflatrem-like alkaloids to affect motor coordination in infected ants, causing the ants to walk like zombies. 🧟‍♂️ You can read the full article here: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

I am the creator of the community science initiative The Zombie Fungus Foray. 👩‍🔬 This project uses iNaturalist to identify various species of Ophiocordyceps around the world! 🌍 🔍 You can find the project page by searching for TheZombieFungusForay on iNaturalist.

My research journey began with a fascination for the microscopic world 🦠. I have since trained extensively in microbiology and molecular genetics to understand the symbiotic relationships between microbes and other organisms! Fungi are particularly interesting to me! 🍄

As part of my pedagogical and outreach work, I have collaborated with several groups to create a virtual reality video game about zombie ants! 🕹️ You can try it out for yourself for free on steam, just type ZOMBIE ANTS VR in the search menu!

I also conduct discipline-based education research (how we can effectively teach biology). 👨‍🏫 This involves teaching both in the classroom and in our local communities! 🍎

Hi everyone! 👋 I heard this was a great place to share science! I research zombie fungi and how they manipulate the behavior of insects! 🧟‍♂️ 🐜 🍄‍🟫