There are plenty of zombie movies where viruses decimate the human population with diseases that turn infected hosts into crazy, blood-thirsty undead bodies. Biotech research reports (and maybe even the CDC!) make some of the premises for these zombie movies sound plausible, but mother nature itself has created a few zombie phenomena as well. Here are just some examples.

• Toxoplasma gondii infects rodents, cats.. and people -- possibly causing weird behaviors and strange culture quirks. The Happening has already happened, sort of. [url]
• Fungus-controlled ants are compelled by their mold-masters to die in nice neighborhoods for spores to thrive. These ants are programmed to die on north-facing plant leaves, roughly 25 centimeters off the ground, in an area with 94-95% humidity and a temperature between 20-30 Celsius. [url]
• A wasp's venom can turn a cockroach into a "dog on a leash." The wasp ends up laying eggs in the belly of its cockroach-pet -- and the wasp young eat their way out. [url]
• Another kind of wasp lays its eggs in an orb spider, and the larvae control the spider to build a special web for them. Is there a Spiderman villan based on this wasp? [url]
• To discover more interesting biological curiosities, check out what's currently floating around the StumbleUpon universe. [url]  

By the way, StumbleUpon can recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

Sneeje points us to a recent BBC article about how many old films are being literally eaten up by fungus, such that important elements of our history are being deleted via the "archival" process. Of course, if this content was digitized and allowed to be shared, this wouldn't be a problem, as there would be more and more copies available, rather than relying on a single point of failure made up of film with a gel coating that happens to be "ideal food for fungi like Aspergillus and Penicillium."