Scientists Discover new bacteria to turn normal plants into Zombie Plants

 We watch many videos and movies about zombies (The Walking Dead, The last of Us...) but who think that one day we will see zombies in the real life?.

No don't worry they are not Human Zombies because if it's, make sure that you're not acting in an american movie. In fact, a group of Scientists from the John Innes Center in Norwich, UK discover a kind of parasitic bacteria that turn normal plants into Zombies.

How Can a bacteria turn Plants into Zombies?

When plants are infected by parasitic bacteria called phytoplasmas, their flowers turn into leafy shoots, their petals turn green and they develop a mass of shoots called ‘witches’ brooms’. This transformation sterilizes the plant, while attracting the sap-sucking insects that carry the bacteria to new hosts.

“The plant appears alive, but it’s only there for the good of the pathogen,” says plant pathologist Saskia Hogenhout from the John Innes Centre in Norwich, UK. “In an evolutionary sense, the plant is dead and will not produce offspring.”

“Many might baulk at the concept of a zombie plant because the idea of plants behaving is strange,” says David Hughes, a parasitologist at Pennsylvania State University in University Park. “But they do, and since they do, why wouldn't parasites have evolved to take over their behaviour, as they do for ants and crickets?”

That's not all, because more plants can be infected, and this can happen cause of the transmission of this parasitic bacteria from a "Zombie Plant" to a normal plant by other insects. So imagine the plants after 10 years if this didn't stop.

“The beauty of the paper is that the bacteria control both plant and insect at the same time with the same protein,” said Hughes. “That’s stunning.” 

For some peoples this can be dangerous because who imaging that one day scientists will discover Zombie Plants So "In an evolutionary sense, the plant is dead". My question here if this happen to Plants what stop this bacteria from transferring Human into Zombies. 

And when that day come we will live in the "Walking Dead Real Life".

Via: Nature, Engadget