"Could There REALLY Be Human Zombies???" Topic

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I doubt it, but it'd be pretty cool. From a distance.

Maybe with some sort of nanotechnology specifically designed to re-animate a body, but it seems like it'd be incredibly ineffecient. Maybe for specialized infiltration or equipment retrieval missions? Psychologcal warfare?

I work with some…so yes.

Depends what you mean by a zombie, I suppose.

If it's of the rather common "rotting corpse hungry for brains" variety of the "Any Time of the Day of the Dead" fame, then I don't think it makes a lot of sense to use in a scifi setting.

If it just means "meat puppet", in other words human (or animal, for that matter) body controlled by some foreign means with the normal guiding intelligence either suplanted, overruled or simply lacking, then it starts to make some sense.

Definitely the latter . . .

"If it just means "meat puppet", in other words human (or animal, for that matter) body controlled by some foreign means with the normal guiding intelligence either suplanted, overruled or simply lacking, then it starts to make some sense."

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In Vodun (VooDoo) some houngan or mambo practice black magic as opposed to white. They are then known as caplata. The zombie is created by these caplata by use of drugs that sap the will. There MAY have been instances where the caplata used a drug that causes simulated death, has the person buried, then "resurrects" him/her, sometimes keeping the person in a drugged state, other times returning them to normal, but kept as a willing slave. After all, this person just raised you from the dead, so you have got to be thankful, right.

Ah, the subject of the controversial book by Wade Davies "The Serpent And The Rainbow" and also the quite nice Wes Craven film very loosely based on it. There might be something to it, I suppose.

Cacique Caribe 08 Jan 2009 4:16 a.m. PST:
"Definitely the latter . . ."

In that case (while getting a sense of deja vu) I would next consider what level of self awareness and autonomy would a "meat puppet" be allowed in order to be counted as such a zombie. Probably less than "The Manchurian Candidate" but likely more than a radio controlled toy car?

As noted, the classical zombie idea is just not plausible

As to this idea, conceivable – but probably not able to take as much punishment as the classical zombie

Chip implants would be much more predictable

Regardless of any silly 'facts', it is the ethical and moral responsibility of all citizens to prepare for the coming zombie apocalypse.

I love this . . .

"A common parasite can increase a women's attractiveness to the opposite sex but also make men more stupid, an Australian researcher says.
About 40 per cent of the world's population is infected with Toxoplasma gondii, including about eight million Australians."
"Infected men have lower IQs, achieve a lower level of education and have shorter attention spans. They are also more likely to break rules and take risks, be more independent, more anti-social, suspicious, jealous and morose, and are deemed less attractive to women.
"On the other hand, infected women tend to be more outgoing, friendly, more promiscuous, and are considered more attractive to men compared with non-infected controls.
"In short, it can make men behave like alley cats and women behave like sex kittens".
Dr Boulter said the recent Czech Republic research was not conclusive, but was backed up by animal studies that found infection also changes the behaviour of mice.
The mice were more likely to take risks that increased their chance of being eaten by cats, which would allow the parasite to continue its life cycle."
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"Infected men were more likely to be aggressive, jealous and suspicious, while women became more outgoing and showed signs of higher intelligence."
toxoplasma infection and subsequent delayed reaction times were linked to a greater risk of traffic accidents. "If our data are true then about a million people a year die just because they are infected with toxoplasma," Flegr says.
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"They show that half of Britain's human population carry the parasite in their brains, and that infected people may undergo slow but crucial changes in their behaviour.
Infected men, suggests one new study, tend to become more aggressive, scruffy, antisocial and are less attractive. Women, on the other hand, appear to exhibit the "sex kitten" effect, becoming less trustworthy, more desirable, fun- loving and possibly more promiscuous.
Interestingly, for those who draw glib conclusions about national stereotypes, the number of people infected in France is much higher than in the UK.
He found the women infected with toxoplasma spent more money on clothes and were consistently rated as more attractive. "We found they were more easy-going, more warm-hearted, had more friends and cared more about how they looked," he said. "However, they were also less trustworthy and had more relationships with men."
By contrast, the infected men appeared to suffer from the "alley cat" effect: becoming less well groomed undesirable loners who were more willing to fight. They were more likely to be suspicious and jealous. "They tended to dislike following rules," Flegr said."
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"He found the women infected with toxoplasma spent more money on clothes"
"Men . . . 'tended to dislike following rules'"

My wife and I need to get tested!

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Well… Even assuming the results do pan out on closer scrutiny, I'm not sure if toxoplasma is viable as a "scientific zombie virus".

There is however a specific CATegory of smut that relies on effects like this. With the distinct difference that a typical female object in those stories becomes (usually a lot) dumber, not cleverer.

On a more family friendly note, a rampant case of supertoxoplasma might be thought to lead to a scenario of the type described in Sheri S. Tepper's "The Gate to Women's Country". Or indeed that of the local fan fame, "Zardoz" (-;)

Hmmm. I call "bogus" on the toxoplasma story. How could a parasite make a woman "more desirable"? What is this, Harry Mudd's "Venus" drug?

I see them every time I go to CostCo. They mindlessly mill about in the parking lot and aisles. Then when someone puts out some free samples they horde around the booth like they were giving out fresh brains.

A zombie is the result of a highly infectious necrotrophic anaerobic agent infecting an aerobic organism. The zombification agent is a bloodborne pathogen usually transferred when one agent-infected organism bites an aerobic organism. The zombification agent is a methanogen with an explosive growth rate that weakens and kills hosts by means of methanogenesis. The host's body fluids are replaced by a black petroleum jelly-like hydrocarbon-based substance nicknamed 'zomboleum' that serves several purposes.
The zomboleum was originally thought to act as a kind of embalming solution, when in fact, it's primary purpose is to chelate carbon from the host's body tissues to feed the zombification agent. As the zombification agent feeds, body tissues are replaced with methanol-based resins and polymers derived from the sterno. Lastly, the zomboleum provides the chemical energy needed to reanimate the cadaver of the host. The exterior of a reanimated host will experience limited decomposition as oxygen exposure destroys the zombification agent in exposed infected tissues. But this decomposition serves as a kind of hemostasis that causes the cessation of body fluid loss from open wounds (a newly reanimated host is very flammable because it's wounds haven't closed yet).
It is thought that the consumption of living human flesh by a zombie serves no purpose. This is not true. The decomposition of human flesh inside a reanimated cadaver creates an anaerobic micro-environment inside of the reanimated cadaver conducive to culturing the zombification agent.
The only known treatment for a person bitten by a zombie to imbide an ethanol-based beverage to the point of intoxication for several hours. The ethanol slows down the action of alcohol dehydrogenase by methanogen products by means of competitive inhibition. In other words, to stop from becoming a zombie, you have to drink them….

Ask me again after I've had more coffee.

Now THIS is really resident evil!

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I wonder if humans with other similar parasites have ever been studied to see if their parasites have altered their behavior in any way.

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Sound like a load of bull to me. Where's my shovel?

The problem with the rabies virus as a zombie virus is that it does eventually kills the victim/host. And even though humans have been bitten by a rabid animal, there has never been a known case of a human going mad with rabies and running around biting others. It's a slow and painful death unless treated before the symptoms show up. Once the symptoms are there it's too late.

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There were human zombies documented as early as the 1940's:

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I see zombies all day long at the mall. And dead-ender mutants.

There is actually a highly contagious, lethal virus that makes infected mammals act disturbingly like "Rage" zombies. It is commonly known as Rabies. However even animals that have non-functioning pain receptors, and uncontrolable aggression and violent tendencies tend to get killed before they can infect many others. Pain is an important tool for preserving the function of the any body. Plus we have a cure for humans. Might be many of the early zombies stories were rabid animals. Listen to the last Halloween edition of This American Life to hear a story of what seems like a Zombie raccoon…

Parzival 08 Jan 2009 8:06 a.m. PST:
"I call 'bogus' on the toxoplasma story. How could a parasite make a woman 'more desirable'?"

Yep, that's prolly the most decidedly hokey sounding bit but then again it's very dangerous to speculate about even a solid scientific research solely based on short popularisation articles.

In this case, I couldn't immediately find information on how that particular conclusion is supposed to have been drawn (and most certainly won't be arsed to read further into it ATM). I must doubt if it was a double blind experiment tho, and in case sosiopsychological evaluations like "X is hotter than Y" are vague at best anyway.

For the purposes of CC's (pseudo)scientific zombie stuff, one could assume the infected would excrude stronger or different pheromones from normal human females. Or something.

The Federal Vampire and Zombie Agency has been kicking this one around for years.

fvza.org