Zombies are real and everywhere we look. Not human zombies, of course, but animal ones: insects, arachnids, and countless other species.

In her new book, Rise of the Zombie Bugs: The Surprising Science of Parasitic Mind-Control , author and science writer Mindy Weisberger delves into the world of zombifying parasites, aka the various lifeforms that have evolved to nudge or outright force their hosts into doing their bidding.

The average person probably knows about a few of these parasites, such as the fungi that take over an ant’s body so it can climb up blades of grass and release a new generation of infectious spores—an act so horrifically spell-binding that a fictional version of it sparked the human apocalypse seen in the popular game and HBO TV show The Last of Us. But Weisb

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