Photo: Sir Mildred Pierce

Parasites, virii, bacteria, evil alien brain worms. These things can all potentially live inside you and destroy you from the inside out. I’ve written about Toxoplasma before. It’s a parasite that decreases fear in rats, causing them to be eaten by cats. Pregnant women must avoid cats and undercooked meat, as Toxoplasmosis can cause sexual promiscuity, more male births and excessive risk taking. It can make men less intelligent, more jealous and anti-social, cause schizophrenia, or slow reaction times. This little worm can even be the cause of car collisions. Death.

From a report on Toxoplasmosis and car accidents:

“The subjects with latent toxoplasmosis have significantly increased risk of traffic accidents than the noninfected subjects. Relative risk of traffic accidents decreases with the duration of infection. These results suggest that ‘asymptomatic’ acquired toxoplasmosis might in fact represent a serious and highly underestimated public health problem, as well as an economic problem. “

I’m not saying Toxoplasma causes zombism — but it can create strange mental faculties, cause aggression and risk taking and reduce reaction time. Are cats evil? Quite possibly yes.

Are food-borne parasites a major cause of car accidents? – Science that Matters.

Czech scientists discover link between accidents, blood group and parasite – Radio.cz

No Halloween tricks here, only treats.

Keen readers will note that suspected zombie activity exists, and is often overlooked by the press.

Man punches suspected zombie, flees

IOWA CITY, Iowa

Iowa City police are investigating an early morning assault [on October 26th] in which a man accused another of being a zombie, then punched him twice. Police said the assault occurred at 1:17 a.m. Sunday at an Iowa City restaurant south of the University of Iowa campus.

A man was ordering food when he was approached by another man who called him a zombie, then hit him in the eye. When the victim tried to call police on his cell phone, the man punched him again, breaking his nose.

The man then ran out a back door.

The victim was taken by ambulance to a hospital.

It would appear the aggressor here has been on high alert. If you’re going to attack or defend yourself from suspected zombies, you had better make sure you have the full legal right to defend yourself from personal and property harm.

Dead baby wakes up for his funeral wake

A baby boy born 16 weeks prematurely was declared dead by doctors at a hospital in Paraguay only to wake up in time for his funeral wake hours later.

“Initially, the baby didn’t move, he practically didn’t have any respiratory reflexes, nor did we hear a heartbeat and, as a result, we declared a premature fetus of 24 weeks dead,” Weber told Reuters Television.

The family was given a death certificate and a cardboard box with the baby’s name scribbled on the outside which served as a makeshift coffin.

But when the family took him from the hospital to prepare him for his funeral, the unbelievable happened.

“I opened the box and took the baby out and he cried. I got scared and I said “the baby’s crying” … and then he started moving his arms, his legs and I got scared, we got very scared,” said one member of the family, Liliana Alvarenga.

Hours after the baby’s death had been declared he was found to be alive. The hospital has begun an investigation and the baby is now in a stable condition in an incubator.

Presumably, he was transferred to another hospital where his condition was upgraded to “alive”.

Pet Turtle Disease Could Spread to Humans

Oct. 5, 2009 — A researcher has identified the first Australian case of a captive turtle being infected with a highly contagious disease, which has the potential to spread to humans.

Debbie Bannan, a second year veterinary science student from James Cook University in Townsville, said she discovered the disease on an Emydura macquarii, a common species of pet turtle, which was brought to a vet clinic where she was volunteering.

She said the turtle presented with a lesion on its front forelimb, which they thought was an isolated inflammation of the bone and could be treated by amputating its limb and flipper.

“It started to rehabilitate really well,” said Bannan. “But three months after that it rapidly went downhill and reluctantly we had to euthanize it.”

Bannan said when they conducted a post-mortem, they found the turtle had a bacterial disease, called mycobacterium, that had spread throughout its entire body.

“Mycobacterium is much like staph on human skin, and it can be carried by lots of animals.”

The bacterium isn’t pathogenic until it enters the body, through air passages, cuts or the intestines, she said.

Lastly, a terribly misinformed scientific perspective of zombies.

Shoemaker: Zombie doomsday scenario is just illogical

The causes for reanimated flesh are varied and sometimes completely undefined. No matter, the end result is the same — an ever-quickening spread of walking dead consuming and converting the living to their cannibalistic ways.

We all know that zombies eat brains. It’s what they crave. It’s what motivates them to ceaselessly stalk the living and rip them to shreds in an attempt to open their skulls to get to the savory gray matter inside. Further, we know that any injury caused by one of these creatures — be it a bite or a mere scratch — is enough to turn a human into a zombie.

Yet, we also know that the only way to permanently disable a zombie (to kill one, as it were) is to shoot it in the head, or decapitate it, or cause enough trauma to the cranium so as to destroy the brain. Burning works well, too.

Do you now see the lack of logic behind the zombies-overrunning-humanity scenario? If zombies eat brains, and the destruction of the brain is the only thing to kill a zombie, then how could zombie-itis ever sweep over humanity and wipe them out? Motivated only for the neuro-smorgasboard that the living are to them, zombies would be negating their own spread by destroying potential zombies in their feeding frenzy.

Well put professor, but we’re on the lookout for aggressive, crazed, highly infectuous and potentially lethal, very alive humans. They have no taste for brains, only a taste of madness. However, I bet your brains are delicious.

I’ve taken to wearing my kukri around town more often, strapped to my thigh. It’s easier to claim “religious use” than a firearm.

I was asked on the Red Bar Radio show “how much have I spent so far on something that doesn’t exist”.

Not enough.

Undead or infected? Horror movie puritanism or scientific reality? Discussion and debate surrounds not which makes a better film, but which is more likely to happen. You can blame science. The zombie outbreak will most likely be the result of some experiment gone wrong, an adaptive virus, or horrible pathogen. Save a giant UFO hiding behind a comet that animates dead bodies instead of trucks and electric knives, many of us will die by actual, angry, infected humans.

Some possible, semi-grounded in science explanaitons, as offered by Cracked.com:

• Brain parasites  - i.e. Toxoplasma gondii, or Naegleria fowleri.
• Neurotoxins – (Tetrodotoxin, though this just induces a coma-like, non threatening state).
• Adaptaive and aggressive rabies strain or other neurotropic virus  (resulting in aggressive and contagious rabies like symptoms).
• Neurogenesis (recreation and reanimation of brain cells).
• Nanobots (though not a traditional infection, imagine a Terminator like apiocalypse, only with hundreds of thousands of self-replicating, human hating machines).
• Immortal cells - i.e. Helacyton gartleri cancer cells which do not die.

There won’t be reanimated corpses. If you survive the infection, you will be murdering alive, and perhaps conscious humans.

Mr. T is half right. There will be no reanimated corpses. Muscle movement depends upon Adenosine Triphosphate, which depends on flowing, oxygenated blood. Yet Mr. T. overlooks one essential fact: ATP is still be produced by very much alive, maddened and sickened humans. These humans may run fast or slow, but they won’t be dead.

For some horror and zombie purists, no “infected” or fast zombie is a true zombie, they insist only the George Romero Night of the Living Dead slow moving reanimated corpses are actual zombies. These purists often claim the fast running new Dawn of the Dead undead are a new invention and should be left to die. The opposing and newer Danny Boyle 28 Days Later school says zombies are fast running, “rage” virus infected, living humans, and differentiates so by calling them “infected” instead of “zombies”. Unfortunately, the Romero zombie (with a possible exception for voodoo) is only a zombie of film. The virus or disease infected zombie is much more probable. However, the undead and fast running, leaping, Boomer, Smoker, Witch, Tank or Hunter zombies must remain in Left 4 Dead and Resident Evil.

Your zombies will be very much alive, and they will be maddened and they will probably not feel or be aware of pain. They could seek you out, potentially in groups, though solitary or unmindful of other infected is also possible. They will not want to eat your brains, they will only want to viciously attack and bite anything that gets near them. Imagine the cross between a rabid wolverine and a violent, knife weilding psychopath. That’s your zombie, and he or she will be contagious. Headhsots will certainly bring them down, as will multiple center of mass shots, but they will take many bullets before they are terminated.

You’ll need to worry about the people who don’t know they are harbingers of the virus, carriers of disease, or bringers of parasties. Who in your party can you trust? Did that bite really break the skin? Taking care of hordes of the undead may sound like fun, but mom won’t be dead. She’s still your mom. And dad didn’t tell you yet, but she’s pregnant with your baby sister. Are you sure you’re up to this?

Zombies aren’t necessarily undead, reanimated ghouls. Research at The Undead Report indicates zombies can be infected, crazed, uncontrollable rabid humans. You want to be sure one of them is dead? Aim for the head. Don’t stand there and let them bite you, infectious or not!

Joseph Lancellotti, a 67 year old greater New Orleans man was gardening at his home when a crazed man gibbering in Spanish ran up to him, hitting him in the head. During Lancellotti’s valiant struggle using a rake for defense, the strange man bit his arm and swallowed the flesh.

Bit his arm, and swallowed the flesh.

The crazed man, later identified as Mario Vargas, 48 hung around and made no attempt to flee when police officers arrived at the scene. Forty five minutes earlier, he had been released from a local hospital for a finger injury.  What was that injury? What happened after his release and before the attack? Did hospital staff not notice something strange?

His wife, Bonnie Lancellotti obviously notes “This person’s clearly lost his sense, I mean, what else can you say, eating people’s skin?”

Lost his sense, lost his mind, or lost his human functions?

If you haven’t seen “Quarantine”, I highly suggest you do. Besides being a solidly produced horror film, it’s realistic, shot first-person, and is quite an accurate description of what a zombie outbreak might look like: infected, crazed people feeling no pain, acting on instinct and being strange. And eating you.

Stranger takes bite of gardener’s arm

Don’t forget about tomorrow’s Zombie Walk in Millenium Park, Chicago!

If there’s one question that refuses to die from friends, readers and the government, it’s “Why Zombies?”. Zombie lore abounds in the Weltgeist, popular culture and even music videos. There’s a new zombie movie every month from Zombie Strippers to Diary of the Dead. Max Brooks’ World War Z and his Zombie Survival guide are national best sellers. Zombie video games are finally reaching the PC audience, such as Left 4 Dead and the web-based RPG, Urban Dead. Zombie walks are also popular, such as the pub crawl this April in Chicago, and the thousand person plus zombie walk this Saturday in Millenium Park, Chicago.

Looting, shooting heads, surviving in urban ruins, packing machine guns — a scavenger hunt to survive. Zombie fans agree — living in a zombie apocalypse sounds like brainless fun!

Romance

A return to simpler things, fighting for survival, unremorseful killing and headshots, living on the run and an ever present danger are a few ideas that get tossed around when mentioning a zombie apocalypse. The archetypal one-against-many story makes one a hero if they survive the apocalypse and a legend if they kill hundreds or thousands of zombies. There’s a certain romanticsim that comes about when one pictures a zombie apocalypse, and I think a lot of that has to do with what Hollywood and fiction have been feeding us. Let me assure you though, a zombie apocalypse will be far from romantic ideals, if you survive the initial panic.

The naive “return to simpler things” idea conveniently leaves a few things out: you’re sure as hell never going to have a cheeseburger again. Think about it, do you really want to live in a world without burgers and fries? Yeah it doesn’t seem so fun. In the event of an apocalypse, you won’t have access to electricity, gasoline, the Internet, and Gods help you if you get an infection or a toothache. The only doctors in an apocalypse are those who amputate and the only dentists are those who extract — it’s a return to times before electricity and running water. Are you ready? You may have beer, but it will all be WARM BEER.

Unrepentant Killing

I think it’s an unspoken desire that in a zombie apocalypse, we’ll be able to kill what used to be humans at will, remorselessly and by any means necessary. It’s the darker half of the human create/destroy dichotomy that we’ll be able to freely execute. Imagine you and your uninfected loved ones, back to back with rifles in hand, taking aim from your stronghold in some remote northern Michigan location. It all sounds pretty freakin’ awesome. The ability to shoot any dead thing that moves sounds pretty fun, but the best part is not having to pay taxes on all those bullets and your hard work.

The headshots you’re planning on taking? I hope you’ve saved up enough ammunuition, because unless you make camp in Fallujah there won’t be dead soldiers and ammo stashes laying about like in your video games. A zombie apocalypse is tough love when it comes to reloading. You had better have one sharp sword at your side.

Living in an Abandoned World

You’ll find multi story hotels, trees growing on roofs, monolitihc train stations and dead urban centers and I’m not talking about today’s Detroit. It will be like that everywhere in the undead future. Some zombie fans have an interest in urban exploring. Urban exploring is a hobby (or lifestyle or obsession) that involves finding and exploring abandoned buildings, towns, tunnels, subways and the cemetaries. Investigating and photographing such things accurately mirrors the post-apocalyptic world. When you investigate an abandoned mine or hotel, you’re responsible for your own life — water, first aid, safety and common sense will keep you alive. Every urban explorer has a curious nature to investigate and wonder why, what and if.

The great cities of the world will be epicenters of disaster in an undead pandemic. Survivors may attempt to make strongholds in malls or skyscrapers, but resources will be limited, parties will be required to scavenge for supplies and food, and those left behind will join the shambling legions of urban walking corpses. Many survivors will flee to the open plains and small towns, where survival has a higher chance. Given a large enough timeline, undead population dispersion will be more or less homogenous, with slightly larger populations in geographically isolated areas, urban areas and attracted to survival camps. Large cities will become hotspots for scavenging and resource gathering, and this is where the urban explorer curiosity comes in. The UEr has much experience investigating and gathering information about unknown places and the hazards they pose.

Why Zombies? Because it’s going to be AWESOME.

For the sake of this argument, I will be referring to a zombie as not a member of the undead, but rather human bodies acting seemingly without a will of their own, with an intention to consume, destroy, or otherwise cause general grief to the remaining human populace.

Zombies in popular culture form three distinct classes:

• Walking Dead – undead, walking dead or reanimated corpses
• Viral – viral, parasitic or infected humans
• Scientific – scientifically altered humans, through radiation, poisons or drugs, or psychic conditioning

The Walking Dead

Our current understanding of human physiology, biology and chemistry tell us that a human corpse cannot rise, reactivate or in any other way reanimate. There must exist an external stimulus to bring about reanimation. If such a stimulus succeeds in reanimating a corpse though electricity, nutrient rich serum, or some strange radioactive measure, the corpse will still have difficulty with life support. A reanimated brain can function and provide basic skills such as breathing, blood pumping and simple motor skills, operating on a primitive, feral level. The reanimated head and brain show signs of smell, taste hearing and sight. This is evidenced by previous Soviet and current American experiments. An undead person would have one thought: feed to keep the body moving. The only problem is, the entire body would also be reanimated and would need energy to survive, much like any other human does. Air, water, food. Assuming a physiology like that of the living, a heart shot would be just as effective in destroying the undead. Muscles need air and energy, and this is pumped by the blood.

Undead Physiology

If the physiology of the undead changes, it is a different matter. Muscles can operate through electricity alone, that’s how they work at the most basic level. Apply a current and a muscle will tense; remove it and it will relax. Corpses always contain rot and the organisms involved in breaking down dead tissue. If the process in reanimating the corpse causes its brain to be active and conduct electricty, the body is essentially a walking meat-machine. The organisms and acids responsible for breakdown of the body will still be present. The moving muscles of the body will produce enough heat to slow or halt the decomposition. The remaining bacteria will remain internal, and begin slowly decomposing the body from the inside. An introduction of warm flesh (human or other mammals) to the zombies digestive system will prevent the necrotizing organisms from eating the zombie. Necessary energies for locomotion would be converted from the byproducts of digesting fresh flesh, and absorbed through the decaying flesh.

If radiation is involved, certain properties could dispel decomposition or produce mutations responsible for an adaptive physiology. In either situatuation, the corpse is not conscious. It would operate on an instinctual level that could include self-preservation through an aggressive nature. It would be more efficient to use muscles slowly, but short bursts of strength or speed could be produced.

Undead Transmission

If the cause of a reanimated corpse is through scientific methods such as resuscitation, electrical reanimation or means as yet uncovered, infectious transmission will probably be nil, as the means of reanimation will be artificial.

However, if the zombies saliva, greymatter or blood contains a toxic solution or causes mutation of the host’s physiology, infection could occur. Transmission of disease and horrible toxins can cause a rapid sickness in a bitten victim, causing death. They may not awaken as a zombie, but could certainly be susceptible to the same factors that reanimated earlier corpses.

Parasitic Infections

There exist in nature certain organisms that cause paralysis, altered survival, behavioral and sexual patterns and can evenmake their host suicidal. They use either toxins, neural paralysis or behave as parasites to cause their host to enter a state of zombism, sacrificing itself for the reproductive nature of the parasite.

Zombie-state Causes

The emerald cockroach wasp (Ampulex compressa) is a parasitoid wasp that temporarily paralyzes cockroaches, and takes careful aim at the roaches brain, nullifying its evasive response. The wasp then controls the roach through its antennae, much like a dog on a leash. It steers the heavy roach to its lair, where the wasp lays eggs that later hatch and eat their way out.

Similarly, an unclassified species of Costa Rican wasp attacks an orb weaving spider, which is temporarily paralyzed as it lays eggs on the tip of the spider’s abdomen. On the night before the parasitic larvae kill their host, normal web-weaving events take a bizarre turn. Through some unknown mechanism, the larvae compel their host spider to build a web that is very different from that it has always constructed before – the spider builds a stout, reinforced platform which is much smaller. When the new web is complete, the larvae kill their host, and cocoon themselves on the structure.

Toxoplasma gondii is a species of parasitic protozoa that has an interesting means of reproduction. It has the ability to change the behavior of rats and mice, making them drawn to, rather than fearful of, the scent of cats. This effect is advantageous to the parasite, which will be able to sexually reproduce if its host is eaten by a cat. The infection is almost surgical in its precision. Human behavior may also be affected in some ways, and correlations have been found between latent Toxoplasma infections and various characteristics such as decreased reactionary time, feelings of insecurity, neuroticism, and possibly even cases of schizophrenia and paranoia. T. gondii is also correlated strongly with an increase in boy births in humans, leading to an alteration of the human sex proportion. Other possible behavior modifications are suggested by a study suggesting that people not infected with the parasite found women with toxoplasma more attractive. Similarly, brain eating amoeba cause death in humans – and show little signs until its too late.

On a larger scale, the nematomorph hairworm (Spinochordodes tellinii) hairworm lives and breeds in fresh water. However, it spends a part of its life eating the insides of live grasshoppers and then brainwashing the grasshopper into committing suicide by hopping into a pool of water and drowning.

Rabies. Need I mention this? It already carries the common traits of traditional Zombism. Rabies lives in the brain, is transmitted through infectious saliva and alters an animals mind to produce an aggresive, rage filled state. Infections in humans also can cause paralysis, hydrophobia and hallucinations.

Admittedly, a parasitic brain-stabbing wasp or hairworm has quite a leap to go from a simple insect to a human host. It is within reason to assume that such a wasp could attempt an attack on small mammals or otherwise mutate or evolve its patterns if roaches are in low supply or develop counter-tactics. As mammals don’t have antennae their ability to steer one is a bit of a stretch. Yet, a mammalian host is still receptive to being internally devoured by wasp larvae or hairworms. With an effective species jump, the hairworm could cause mammals to produce similar suicidal traits. Neither of these would result in zombism, but serve to illustrate brain chemistry and that an organisms behavior can be modified to that of even the smallest parasite. T. gondii’s decreasing the male populous is interesting, as it shows even homo sapiens is suceptible to mind and biology altering parasites.

Zombie Parasite Transmission

Rabies serves as the most interesting and most likely candidate for infectious parasitic zombism. While not a zombie in the conventional undead sense, all the characteristcs would be displayed, mainly an aggressive nature, infected brain matter, and transmission through saliva. Infected humans of a mutated or even radioactive strain of rabies would definitely exhibit these feral symptoms – and would probably be fast too. As shown in the remake of “Dawn of the Dead” or the “28 Days Later” movies, fast zombies are a real problem. Though a “zombie” in thoughtless, rage filled terms, a headshot will still bring these humans down. Heart and body shots are another matter – filled with adrenaline and crazed, they may exhibit symptoms of “quislings” and not be brought down as easily as uninfected humans.

Scientifically Altered States

The third, and most probable cause (though mush less dangerous) is through an altered state of consciousness. George A. Romero or John Carpenter would have us believe we’re already in this state if commercialism, suburbanites and mass apathy are any indication. However, I am referring to altered brain and body states as induced by hypnosis or toxins.

Altered Consciousness

As documented in “The Serpent and the Rainbow”, the tetrodotoxin (TTX) of the puffer fish can be used by voodoo priests to cause a zombie-like state of near death. TTX is a highly potent neurotoxin which causes paralysis and eventual death. Gram for gram, TTX is 10,000 times more lethal than cyanide and posesses a terrifying modus operandi — 25 minutes after exposure it begins to paralyze, leaving the brain fully aware of what’s happening. Death usually results, within hours, from suffocation or heart failure. No antidote exists. A victim pronounced dead can be lucky enough to wake up just before his funeral, fully conscious and aware of his surroundings throughout the entire ordeal. TTX has the unusual characteristic that if a nonlethal dose is given, the brain will remain completely unaffected. If just the right dose is given, the toxin will mimic death in the victim, whose vitals will slow to an immeasurable state, and whose body will show signs of rigor mortis and even produce the odor of rot.

Methods induced by sickness, hypnosis or raditation could produce a similar, slowed-brained result. In either case, the zombified person would be neither dead nor aggressive (unless provoked or instructed to be), most likely a threat only to his or herself.

Transmission

Transmission of this type of zombie would be impossible, as the source of zombification remains with the host – either through poisoning or hypnosis. This is non-transferrable and the process could in fact be reversed with proper medical care or a well-placed snipers bullet. This type of zombism is seen as the only plausible kind, and skeptics debunk it as a world-ender much as I have. However, they fail to mention the above methods.

Conclusion

Voodoo zombies remain a curse – but only in the literary sense. Throughly studied, they pose no threat to humankind. Research into reanimating or resuscitating the recently deceased is under investigation and has been in practice since the 1940′s – but no serious headway has been made, and the physiology of keeping some dead thing alive takes a bit of a stretch – but could be possible.

The most probable cause of a zombie pandemic would be through an opportunistic or mutated parasitic organism or virus. Virii remain the dominant form of life on the planet, able to quickly mutate, adapt and change to live (and kill) a variety of hosts. Vaccination serves little purpose and would only serve as an opiate or pacifying agent – much like “Phalanx” in Max Brooks’ “World War Z”. The cause of zombies in his world is through a virus called “Solanum” which reanimates corpses, turning their blood to goo and bears many of the same characteristics of zombies.

Should any of the discussed sources merge or attack at the same time – science help us. Stay away from rabid dogs, eh?

Resources

• Cinema Fiction vs. Physics Reality
• CDC Rabies Just 4 Kids
• Wasp performs roach-brain-surgery to make zombie slave-roaches
• Toxoplasma gondii
• Mind-Controlling Wasps and Zombie Spiders
• How Zombies Work