In reality, Kirkman has always been adamant that the origin of the zombie pandemic on The Walking Dead would never be explained. And in the end, the writer was true to his word. The Walking Dead concluded its run with Issue last year and nowhere in those issues is there any indication of what kind of virus or supernatural event could have reanimated corpses around the world. For years Kirkman steadily maintained that the cause of the zombie outbreak was never important. Zombies were inherent to that mission as antagonists and occasional environmental obstacles.
The closest Kirkman ever came to going on record in describing what caused the zombie outbreak was in the Letter Hacks section for Issue In it, he explained just how someone becomes a zombie thusly:. No matter how anybody dies, as long as the brain is intact… they turn into a zombie. Well… bites, and direct to blood contact with zombie gunk, […] causes death.
The bacteria — which insects disseminate — infect plants such as goldenrods, which have yellow flowers. The infection causes the goldenrods to put out leaf-like extensions instead of their usual blooms. Eventually, they only serve the spread of the bacteria.
But can humans turn into zombies, too? In the s, Dr. Chavannes Douyon and Prof. Roland Littlewood decided to investigate whether Haitian zombies — reanimated, but mindless humans — were a real possibility. In , the two published a study paper in The Lancet in which they analyzed the cases of three individuals from Haiti whose communities had identified as zombies.
One was a year-old woman who had, allegedly, quickly died after having fallen ill. Douyon and Prof. Instead, medical reasons could explain their zombification. The second person had experienced brain damage, and also had epilepsy , while the third appeared merely to have a learning disability. This is because they are under the delusion that they are dead or decomposing. It remains unclear just how prevalent this condition is, but research suggests that it is a rare occurrence. Another speaks of a year-old man who had developed a belief that his organs — including his brain — had stopped working, and that even the house in which he lived was slowly but steadily falling apart.
At some point, the man attempted to take his own life. Do such cases mean that zombies are real in some way, or, just as our fascination with the figure of the zombie in folklore and popular culture, do they merely reflect our uneasy relationship with death?
Zombie snail: Parasitic worm invades snail's eyestalks. Yellowstone supervolcano: 'Intensifying' earthquake swarm spreads Scientist calculates how fast UFOs really are: 'Advanced technology'. The parasite has the ability to make the rodent head towards a cat where it will be eaten. Baba Vanga predictions: Tsunami warning and end of the world.
Bible verses about coronavirus: What does the Bible say about Covid19? We all have nervous systems with chemical receptors, so all a parasite needs to do to control us is create the right chemical cocktail and get it inside our bodies. Need a zombie army? Look no further than ants Ants are found across the world, and so are their parasitic puppeteers.
The flatworm Dicrocoelium dendriticum , for instance, goes to extraordinary lengths to take over the motor controls of ants. Why ants? While other animals died out over the long history of life on Earth, ants survived—and these piggy-backing parasites came along for the ride. Ants have a better track record, are easier to control, and there are many, many more of them for you to command.
Further up in complexity we turn to worms that hijack crickets. Then, persuaded by these worms, the crickets seek water and dive in—a dangerous activity for the cricket, who is essentially leaving its habitat behind. The worms burrow out and lay their eggs. There are many more examples of insects that lose their minds, but what about more complex animals?
This parasite can cause an infection known as toxoplasmosis, which is generally thought to cause only mild effects in most people. Some evidence also suggests that adult humans with the parasite may have personality changes such as increased recklessness, which may lead to a higher chance of death.
The extent of the human personality shifts caused by toxoplasmosis is still being investigated, but we do know that the infection can be disastrous for mice. Infected mice and rats lose their fear of cats, and so are more likely to be eaten. The fact that the single-celled toxoplasma can change mammalian minds suggests that we may be more susceptible to personality changes by parasites than we might think.
Moving on to diseases with more noticeable human symptoms, how about coordination problems, tremors and shaking limbs? Human cannibalism leads to its onset, rather than the disease causing cannibalism.
Dementia, memory loss, personality changes, psychosis, jerky movements, difficulty walking, involuntary movements … these symptoms are frightening and a little zombie-like. Prion diseases work by affecting the nervous system are you noticing a trend? Prions themselves are little misshapen proteins that tell other proteins to become misshapen, like irresistible origami instructions that are shared through the body. Sometimes it takes decades for symptoms of these diseases to show up but, eventually, they manifest into catastrophic, so-far incurable conditions.
Prion diseases are rare nowadays but, with a drop in human hygiene perhaps due to an apocalypse , they may rise again …. Rabies affects mammals such as cats, dogs, cows, and humans.
Rabies works by infecting—you guessed it—the nervous system.
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