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Zombie apocalypse
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Zombie apocalypse
Can a real zombie apocalypse happen?
Parasites come in all shapes and forms. From skinny tapeworms that infest intestines to the microscopic infectious agent of malaria (Plasmodium), parasites are usually inconvenient and sometimes lethal. But there is one group of parasites that is particularly pernicious – they are the parasites that hijack their host’s nervous system, turning their victims into zombies.
These tiny parasites can control behavior of large animals and human in an efficient way, making them bold creature and using them as hosts to retrieve food for the parasites and its larvae.
Majority of these parasites infect smaller organisms such as insects and other animals, but humans can also be susceptible to acquiring zombie behavior. The Toxoplasma Gondii can infest the brains of rodents, cats and other mammals. However, recent studies found out that humans can also serve as hosts for the parasites.
The parasites have already been linked with schizophrenia and other mental illnesses. The worst about the condition is it has no known cure for it so far and researchers are just starting to determine what other effects these parasites can do to the brains of its hosts.
With this finding, there’s no doubt that these parasites can really affect the mentality of its host. The question now is how beastly someone can turn into if these organisms continue to evolve.
How?
How would a “zombie virus” arise? One possibility is that two viruses could join together and form a hybrid.
Viruses work by copying their genetic material within human cells. If there are two viruses in the same cell, one virus may accidentally jump on a genetic copy that belongs to the other virus. The progenitor to the human HIV virus may have arisen this way in Africa when a chimpanzee and monkey virus combined.
There’s another way that a mutant virus can arise: if there’s a glitch in the genetic copying machinery of an existing virus. Sometimes, one of these mutations confers an advantage to the virus that allows the mutated strain to out compete others and quickly take over the world.
Viruses also succeed when they encounter populations that have no immunity against them. A good example is measles in the New World in the 1600s. Europeans, who were resistant to measles virus, brought it with them to the Americas, where the natives weren’t. It spread like wildfire.
Neurotoxins
What are they?
There are certain kinds of poisons that slow your bodily functions to the point that you’ll be considered dead, even to a doctor (okay, maybe not to a good 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 shambling around with their arms outstretched.
How it can result in zombies:
“Can?” How about “does.”
This stuff has happened in Haiti; that’s where the word “zombie” comes from. There are books about it, the most famous ones by Dr. Wade Davis (Passage of Darkness and The Serpent and the Rainbow). Yes, the movie The Serpent and the Rainbow was based on this guy’s actual science stuff.
What is definitely true is the story of Clarifies 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 (no, really).
So, the next time you’re pouring a little packet of sugar into your coffee, remember that it may have been handled by a zombie at some point.
Chances this could cause a zombie apocalypse:
On the one hand, it’s already happened! So that earns it some street cred right off the bat. But, even if some evil genius intentionally distributed alkaloid toxins to a population to turn them into a shambling, mindless horde, there is no way to make these zombies aggressive or cannibalistic.
Yet.
Threat level: Severe
The real rage virus:
In the movie, 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 … well you get it!
How it can result in zombies:
When Mad Cow gets in humans, they call it Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. 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
Sure, the disease is rare (though maybe not as rare as we think) and the afflicted aren’t known to chase after people in murderous mobs. Yet.
But, it proves widespread brain infections of the Rage variety are just a matter of waiting for the right disease to come along.
Chances this could cause a zombie apocalypse:
If the whole sudden, mindless violence idea seems far-fetched, remember that you are just one brain chemical (serotonin) away from turning into a mindless killing machine (they’ve tested it by putting rats in Deathmatch-style cages and watching them turn on each other). All it would take is a disease that destroys the brain’s ability to absorb that one chemical and suddenly it’s a real-world 28 Days Later.
So, imagine such an evolved disease, which we’ll call Super Mad Cow (or, Madder Cow) getting a foothold through the food supply. Say this disease spreads through blood-on-blood contact, or saliva-on-blood contact. Now you have a Rage-type virus that can be transmitted with a bite.
Just like the movies. With one bite, you’re suddenly the worst kind of zombie:
A fast zombie.
Neurogenesis
What is it?
You know all that controversy 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.
You can see where this is going.
How it can result in zombies:
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.
That sounds great, right? 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 and enjoy Grey’s Anatomy. This is how chickens can keep walking around after they’ve been beheaded (including one case where the chicken lived for 18 months without a head).
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.
That, ladies and gentlemen, is what we like to call a real, live, undead zombie. So there.
Chances this could cause a zombie apocalypse:
Think about it. Under every legal system in the world, all rights and responsibilities are terminated at death. All it takes is someone with resources and a need for a mindless workforce of totally obedient slave labor.
How long until somebody tries this? We’re betting somebody in the world, maybe North Korea, will have a working zombie by Christmas.
Threat level: Run!
Nanobots
What are they?
Nanobots are a technology that science apparently engineered to make you terrified of the future. We’re talking about microscopic, self-replicating robots that can invisibly build–or destroy–anything. Vast sums of money are being poured into nanotechnology. Sure, at some level scientists know nanobots will destroy mankind. They just can’t resist seeing how it happens.
How it can result in zombies:
Scientists have already created a nano-cyborg, by fusing a tiny silicone chip to a virus. The first thing they found out is these cyborgs can still operate for up to a month after the death of the host. Notice how nano scientists went right for zombification, even at this early stage. They know where the horror is.
According to studies, within a decade they’ll have nanobots that can crawl inside your brain and set up neural connections to replace damaged ones. That’s right; the nanobots will be able to rewire your thoughts. What could possibly go wrong?
Chances this could cause a zombie apocalypse:
Do the math, people.
Someday there will be nanobots in your brain. Those nanobots will be programmed to keep functioning after you die. They can form their own neural pathways, meaning they can use your brain to keep operating your limbs after you’ve deceased and, presumably, right up until you rot to pieces in mid-stride.
The nanobots will be programmed to self-replicate, and the death of the host will mean the end of the nanobots. To preserve themselves, they’d need to transfer to a new host. Therefore, the last act of the nanobot’s zombie would be to bite a hole in a healthy victim, letting the nanobots steam in and set up camp in the new host. Once in, they can shut down the part of the brain that resists (the cortex) and leave the brain stem intact. They will have added a new member to the unholy army of the undead.
Now, it should be more than clear by this point that our goal is to be responsible researchers. We don’t want to create a panic here. All we’re saying is that on an actual day on the actual calendar in the future, runaway microscopic nanobots will end civilization by flooding the planet with the cannibalistic undead.
Science has proven it.
Threat level: We’re screwed.
But before you panic about a zombie apocalypse, remember that not all viruses are bad. There are more helpful viruses than harmful ones. Some viruses are even essential to our survival, performing functions like stimulating our immune system.
Viruses are indispensable to life as we know it. For instance, viruses shuffle nature’s genetic deck by constantly moving new genetic material from species to species.
Another thing to consider:
The majorities of viruses on Earth infect single-celled microbes, and have no interest in us humans.We’re kind of a sideshow. This whole planet’s really about microbes, just waiting to take it back.That should put your mind at ease.
Source: http://survivalcavefood.com/index.php/blog/zombie_apocalypse/
