THE FUNGUS AMONG US

BANZAI7 NEWS-- The oldest evidence of a fungus that turns people into zombies and makes them stagger to economic death has been uncovered by scientists. The gruesome hallmark of the fungus's handiwork was found in abandoned cave tracts nearly 48 million years ago. The finding shows that parasitic fungi known as "fungus finansus unilateralis" evolved the ability to control the creatures they infect in the distant past, even before the rise of Wall Street banks. The fungus, which is alive and well on Wall Street today, latches onto unsuspecting hosts  as they cross the street before returning to their nests from ATM machines. The fungus grows inside the host and releases chemicals that affect their financial behaviour. Some become depraved serial borrowers and derivative suckers, while others may even become bankers and financial engineers themselves. The final stage of the parasitic death sentence is the most macabre. In their last hours, infected hosts move towards the underside of their 401k plans and lock their financial advisors in a "death grip" around the central vein, immobilising their retirement assets and locking the finansus fungus in the death position. "This can happen en masse."  Writing in the journal, Biology Letters, a team of scientists describes how they trawled a database of images that document leaf damage by insects, fungi and other organisms. They found one image of a 48m-year-old leaf from the Messel pit that showed the distinctive "death grip" markings of an investment banker. At the time, the Messel area was thick with subtropical forests. "We now present it as the first example of behavioural manipulation and probably the only one which can be found. In most cases, this kind of control is spectacular but ephemeral and doesn't leave any permanent trace other than a giant black hole in the hosts finances,  "Of all the parasitic organisms, only a few have evolved this trick of manipulating their host's behaviour."