Recent research has shown that global warming might be responsible for an increase in fungal infections amongst humans. In this episode of the podcast Dr Illingworth investigates the research behind these claims, and what it means for future climates.

Read this episode’s science poem

In sweltering swamps, you seethe
And sweat.
Shedding layers to
Acclimatise to the rising heat,
Learning to bask in the warmth
Of its embrace as you spread
Invasive tendrils to test the
Boundaries of your habitat.

Your colonies have not entered
Our consciousness.

Hiding behind the certainty of
Our thermal restriction zones,
We isolate you from the ear canal
Of a 70-year-old Japanese woman,
Where having grown resistant to the
Profligacy of our heat,
You sneer with contempt at our
Lame attempts to subdue your
Yeasty taint with latent medicine.
Piles of pills lie half-opened,
Scattered across freshly mopped
Hospital corridors that gleam
In the radiance of their inadequacies.
Within the clammy crevices
You watch admiringly as we
Turn up the heat;
An open invitation from your
Clement, conscientious hosts.

By Dr Sam Illingworth

External Resources

Read the scientific study that inspired it here.

The original episode appeared here.

The Poetry of Science blog.

Go back to The Poetry of Science

Featured image credit: CC BY 4.0 by Arturo Casadevall, Dimitrios P. Kontoyiannis, Vincent Robert