The Inevitable Zombie Apocalypse!
The Undead are Social and we are thusly blogging The Inevitable Zombie Apocalypse. Keep calm. Carry on. Aim for the head.
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12 posts tagged Science
i got a response for where zombies food goes, if they do actually consume it. i believe It would just sit in their stomachs and decompose at a very slow pace (no living bacteria) and would eventually cause bloating, or just fill them up to the point where no more material could be swallowed, which would lead to the ripping of flesh without eating that was brought up earlier.
iampatrickpatrickiam
We believe that your first suggestion is more plausible. The act of consumption seems to be more important than the gained sustenance. This is, in part, what makes zombies a malevolent and terrifying force. What do you all think?
If human zombie rules apply to dogs, then they are going to be slow. They are naturally fragile, so you can literally kick him away. If they are somehow fast, then we can arrive to the obvious, scientific conclusion that we are, indeed, fucked.
straight-razor-cabaret
Still: we do not want to encounter zombie dogs.
there was a post earlier about animals and whether or not a virus would affect them and if zombies would go for animals or not.... I would theorize that "zombies," for the purposes of this argument and many movies I've seen, just go for live meat. One way or annother I would think they would try and eat animals, but I think they would have problems catching wild animals. Also as far as zombie animals, viruses affect different species in various ways, and the body would have to be intact enough.
madmurdoc21
Nice speculation, but we still want to see some solid science on this.
The Walking Dead episode 2 season 1, the zombies eat the cherrif's horse. There it is a proof, zombies eat animals.
Anonymous
Again, we’re talking about the realities of dealing with zombies. ‘The Walking Dead’ is a fictional television series. The two are very different.
About the Zombification being based off of a virus, it will only spread if it proves to be a zoonotic disease. Which most viruses are. Therefore, yes; it can pass onto animals, but the animal would most likely die before rising again. :)
maliciouszombie
We <3 zombie science.
Zombification is based off of a virus. can the virus be spread to other animals? Such as syphilis, swine flu and chicken flu have transferred from animals to humans?
fillupthatcup
Good question. We doubt it until the science says otherwise.
Whoa, whoa, whoa. Surely a zombie would decompose around its magical, zombie brain rather than starve?
mymymockingjay
Zombies are a product of science, not magic.
A scientific approach to zombies
First off, this a plan that a friend of mine told me the other day. She is pharmacy major and you can really tell this from her plan but its very interesting and worth consideration.
“According to the literature I have found (and by literature, I mean Wikipedia), zombies are hungry for human flesh, primarily brains. So, in the case of a zombie apocalypse, the first step would be to isolate brain cells from a willing individual and begin to clone these cells, producing brain tissue which can be used to pacify the zombies for the immediate time. (I’m not sure at what point in time this supposed apocalypse is occurring, but I’m going to go ahead and assume that cloning brain cells would be preferable to using stem cells for this situation.) This development would also be preferable to the zombies, as clonally derived brain tissue is much more easily accessible than a brain still in a living human being. Once we are able to keep the zombies at least temporarily occupied, the next logical step would be to prevent the situation from worsening, which would occur if the zombies are able to infect the rest of the human race. Since the brain tissue production provides us with time, we can then study the nature of zombies and the mechanism of action of the infection that occurs when a zombie attacks a human. We can isolate the infectious material, culture it and weaken it, and create a vaccination which we can use to induce immunity in the human race.
Anyway, so that’s my plan”
/via @docstodden
Thanks to my friend @MattKowalski, for pointing this one out. I now pass it on to you: Why the Zombie Apocalypse is in fact inevitable.
We found out recently that if you try to leave a little kid in a graveyard late at night, he’ll freak out. Even if you offer to leave him a gun to protect himself. Why? It’s because on some instinctual level, all humans know it’s just a matter of time until the zombies show up.
Our culture is full of tales of the undead walking the Earth, from our religions to our comic books. But, some sort of zombie apocalypse isn’t actually possible, right?
Right?
Guys?
Actually, yes. It’s quite possible. Here’s five ways it could happen, according to science.
It will happen - according to science
/Via @iarekimfee
4 Scientific Reasons a Zombie Apocalypse Could Actually Happen
“We found out recently that if you try to leave a little kid in a graveyard late at night, he’ll freak out. Even if you offer to leave him a gun to protect himself. Why? It’s because on some instinctual level, all humans know it’s just a matter of time until the zombies show up.”
MODERATE THREAT
1. Brain Parasites : Parasites that turn victims into mindless, zombie-like slaves are fairly common in nature. There’s one called toxoplasmosa gondii that seems to devote its entire existence to being terrifying.
This bug infects rats, but can only breed inside the intestines of a cat. The parasite knows it needs to get the rat inside the cat so the parasite takes over the rat’s brain, and intentionally makes it scurry toward where the cats den. The rat is being programmed to get itself eaten, and it doesn’t even know.
half the human population on Earth is infected with toxoplasmosa, and don’t know it? Maybe you’re one of them.
SEVERE THREAT
2. Neurotoxins : There are certain kinds of poisons that slow your bodily functions to the point that you’ll be considered dead, even to a doctor. The poison from fugu (Japanese blowfish) can do this.
The victims can then be brought back under the effects of a drug like datura stramonium (or other chemicals called alkaloids) that leave them in a trance-like state with no memory, but still able to perform simple tasks like eating, sleeping, moaning and shuffling around with their arms outstretched.
How it can result in Zombies?
The story of Clairvius Narcisse. He was a Haitian guy who was declared dead by two doctors and buried in 1962. They found him wandering around the village 18 years later. It turned out the local voodoo priests had been using naturally occurring chemicals to basically zombify people and putting them to work on the sugar plantations.
EXTREME THREAT
3. The Real Rage Virus : it was a virus that turned human beings into mindless killing machines. In real life, we have a series of brain disorders that do the same thing. They were never contagious, of course. Then, Mad Cow Disease came along. It attacks the cow’s spinal cord and brain, turning it into a stumbling, mindless attack cow.
And, when humans eat the meat …
When Mad Cow gets in humans, they call it Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD). Check out the symptoms:
-
- Changes in gait (walking)
- Hallucinations
- Lack of coordination (for example, stumbling and falling)
- Muscle twitching
- Myoclonic jerks or seizures
- Rapidly developing delirium or dementia.
This proves widespread brain infections of the Rage variety are just a matter of waiting for the right disease to come along.
RUN.HIDE.GET WEAPONS.AIM FOR THE HEAD.DOUBLE TAP.
4. Neurogenesis : You know all that conversy out there about stem cell research? Well, the whole thing with stem cells is that they can basically be used to re-generate dead cells. Particularly of interest to zombologists like ourselves is neurogenesis, the method by which they can re-grow dead brain tissue.
Get the point here?
Science can pretty much save you from anything but brain death; they can swap out organs but when the brain turns to mush, you’re gone. Right?
Well, not for long. They’re already able to re-grow the brains of comatose head trauma patients until they wake up and walk around again.
Couple that with the new ability to keep a dead body in a state of suspended animation so that it can be brought back to life later, and soon we’ll be able to bring back the dead, as long as we get to them quickly enough.
Well, this lab dedicated to “reanimation research” (yes, that’s what they call it) explains how the process of “reanimating” a person creates a problem. It causes the brain to die off from the outside in. The outside being the cortex, the nice part of you that makes humans human. That just leaves the part that controls basic motor function and primitive instincts behind.
You don’t need the cortex to survive; all you need is the stem and you’ll still be able to mindlessly walk and eat!
So, you take a brain dead patient, use these techniques to re-grow the brain stem, and you now have a mindless body shambling around, no thoughts and no personality, nothing but a cloud of base instincts and impulses.
ZOMBIE.
Some rather random, but pretty valid information for you all to take on board.
Let’s pretend for a moment that zombies are real (as if half of you weren’t already daydreaming about that very thing). Have you noticed how most zombie movies take place only after the apocalypse is in full-swing? By the time we join our survivors, the military and government are already wiped out, and none of the streets are safe.
There’s a reason the movie starts there, and not earlier. It’s because the early part, where we go from one zombie to millions, doesn’t make any sense. If you let the creeping buzzkill of logic into the zombie party, you realize the zombies would all be re-dead long before you even got a chance to fire up that chainsaw motorcycle you’ve been working on. Why?
