Post by fox on Nov 5, 2013 13:05:50 GMT 10
Zombies are pretty high on my wish list of SHTF scenarios but admittedly pretty low on my likely to happen list , but still there are a few real world options that i have seen here is a couple
Cause one :The Cordyceps fungus
This has got to be my favorite i love mushrooms /fungus and this one has got to be the coolest of all fungus , posted below is a link to a short Attenbourgh clip on them but he misses a few cool bits , basically after digesting and becoming infected by the spores of the Cordyceps Fungus the ant becomes known as a zombie ant , The fungus takes over the brain and the body of the ant in two ways , it attaches to the central nervous system and the muscle structure of the ant ,manipulating in each in turn to achieve its desired aim of having the ant die in the best location to allow it to infect other ants ,this is generally around 25 cm above the ground in the case of the large ground dwelling ant it disorientates it making it walk in circles ,the ants have been known to scream loudly enough for the human ear to hear while this happens, the only ant capable of doing so , until it hits the base of a tree where it forces it to climb to the required height , and compels the ant to bite into a leaf ...by rapidly growing spores around the jaws of the ant until it tears them the to point of lock jaw , so even after death it can not let go ,then it grows a 3cm spike out of the back of the ants head over around 3 weeks and then fires a massive burst of spores onto the forest floor ,beginning the cycle again , its such an effective system that it regularly wipes out entire colonies , and ants have learnt to recognize the symptoms , they will pick up and forcibly remove ants that show signs ,which is pretty cool in its own right , i find this fascinating in two ways , firstly that ants have learnt to recognize an illness is awesome and to come up with an action plan to deal with it on top of that boogles my mind , is this an individual decision that is taught or genetically hardwired in to each ant ? and secondly could you imagine the horror of the human translation of such an act ? some one you know has eaten a bad mushroom and now you have to remove him from society before he grows a 3 foot spike from his face and kills you all ? ,that's a tough decision for a little ant hahaha
There are three main options for Cordyceps to jump to humans
By far the coolest way i think is it being turned into a weapon , as it affects only its targets and dies out once all targets have been eliminated a cordyceps bomb would allow armies to send one in and just wait for everyone to become infected and die ,once that happened they could move in and take over all buildings and infrastructure undamaged except for the messy clean up , a single bomb is a pretty cheap way to win a war
More likely would be accidental translation , it is being used in research for medicine, things like heart medication and blood pressure ,for some reason ! i am not a doctor lol
or even just a good old fashioned animal to human evolution , which happens all the time , i dont think i need to mention mad cow disease www.youtube.com/watcv=XuKjBIBBAL8
Cause two : Cats
The second zombie maker is the common house hold cat, yup mittens could turn you into a zombie ,cats carry Toxoplasmosis ,which has been sited as a very likely cause in the rapid raise of Schizophrenia , the correlation is pretty solid , when one compares the rise in cat owner ship , close quarters living and the increase in Schizophrenia since the industrial revolution , there is enough research out there that pregnant women are advised not to change litter boxes of cats to avoid transmitting it to the unborn child , apparently as a man and being terrible with women this has never actually come up
there are many parasites that work like this , but Toxoplasmosis is pretty cool and it being already attuned to humans its evolutionary leap to us is not a big one , indeed it has already begun , how it works its diabolical , cats and mice live in close contact too each other so once a mouse becomes infected by way of coming into contact with cat feces the parasite turns off the part of its brain that says "cat are bad MMM K" and the mouse becomes fascinated and intrigued by cats until its eaten obviously by a cat , at which point the parasite breeds inside the cats stomach its eggs are pooped out and digested by everyone that comes into contact including us , as warm blooded mammals , we share a huge amount of genetic information with both cats and mice, it could just be causing Schizophrenia in its attempt to get us to eat mice but who knows what symptoms it may eventually evolve in humans , if it can cause delusions and hallucinations then aggression and ravenous hunger for red meat may not be a huge leap
Cause three : Prions or Kuru
This one was discovered by an Aussie in Papua New Guinea a guy called W. T. Brown in the 1950's Kuru is a prion disease , basically its a misfolded protein in the brain and to draw a parallel it falls into the same category as mad cow disease and is caused by the same thing ,,,,CANNIBALISM!!!! , mad cow disease was caused by feeding the brains of the cows back to the cows , in an effort to be economical , but cannibalism especially of the brain can transmit these misfolded proteins and give you Kuru .In certain PNG tribes the burial custom was to eat the deceased , the men ate the brains and sweet breads( or organs ) the women and children the muscles ,,so when Kuru broke out it was generally within the male population, interestingly enough some mothers began to pass down a genetic resistance to Kuru to their off spring but this was not wide spread it can take between three months and 2 years to die of kuru and symptoms include ,unsteady stance and gait, decreased muscle control, tremors, deterioration of speech , ataxia (loss of muscle coordination) and severe tremors the victim is emotionally unstable, depressed, yet having uncontrolled sporadic laughter and dysphagia (difficulty swallowing) which could lead to uncontrollable hunger ..... aggression is a major symptom in mad cow disease so it is possible to develop in other prion strains including ours
Possible world wide infection route : soylent green
Cause four : self replicating nano technology
This stuff is being researched right now, its in play for better or for worse and that includes the option of the doomsday nanobot , basically a huge scientific screw up the idea is that while researching nanotechnology for any application from medical to industrial or military the idea of self replication nanobots will come up , unless controlled these could theoretically once let out infect everyone and evolve into something completely different, and the natural order of evolution regardless of natural or man made is to replicate at any cost , this could lead to all sorts of imaginative techniques including turning humans into some sort of transmission device that may incidentally kill them in the process , if the nanobot needed to be transmitted via body fluids and decided it needed another host causing the host to bite another uninfected host is a very logical course of action and bam zombies every where !
Infection route : mad scientist syndrome
So thats all i have at the moment , i will keep updating this thread as i come across more in my travels , feel free to post any others i might have missed , i am sure there are plenty hope you enjoyed
Cause one :The Cordyceps fungus
This has got to be my favorite i love mushrooms /fungus and this one has got to be the coolest of all fungus , posted below is a link to a short Attenbourgh clip on them but he misses a few cool bits , basically after digesting and becoming infected by the spores of the Cordyceps Fungus the ant becomes known as a zombie ant , The fungus takes over the brain and the body of the ant in two ways , it attaches to the central nervous system and the muscle structure of the ant ,manipulating in each in turn to achieve its desired aim of having the ant die in the best location to allow it to infect other ants ,this is generally around 25 cm above the ground in the case of the large ground dwelling ant it disorientates it making it walk in circles ,the ants have been known to scream loudly enough for the human ear to hear while this happens, the only ant capable of doing so , until it hits the base of a tree where it forces it to climb to the required height , and compels the ant to bite into a leaf ...by rapidly growing spores around the jaws of the ant until it tears them the to point of lock jaw , so even after death it can not let go ,then it grows a 3cm spike out of the back of the ants head over around 3 weeks and then fires a massive burst of spores onto the forest floor ,beginning the cycle again , its such an effective system that it regularly wipes out entire colonies , and ants have learnt to recognize the symptoms , they will pick up and forcibly remove ants that show signs ,which is pretty cool in its own right , i find this fascinating in two ways , firstly that ants have learnt to recognize an illness is awesome and to come up with an action plan to deal with it on top of that boogles my mind , is this an individual decision that is taught or genetically hardwired in to each ant ? and secondly could you imagine the horror of the human translation of such an act ? some one you know has eaten a bad mushroom and now you have to remove him from society before he grows a 3 foot spike from his face and kills you all ? ,that's a tough decision for a little ant hahaha
There are three main options for Cordyceps to jump to humans
By far the coolest way i think is it being turned into a weapon , as it affects only its targets and dies out once all targets have been eliminated a cordyceps bomb would allow armies to send one in and just wait for everyone to become infected and die ,once that happened they could move in and take over all buildings and infrastructure undamaged except for the messy clean up , a single bomb is a pretty cheap way to win a war
More likely would be accidental translation , it is being used in research for medicine, things like heart medication and blood pressure ,for some reason ! i am not a doctor lol
or even just a good old fashioned animal to human evolution , which happens all the time , i dont think i need to mention mad cow disease www.youtube.com/watcv=XuKjBIBBAL8
Cause two : Cats
The second zombie maker is the common house hold cat, yup mittens could turn you into a zombie ,cats carry Toxoplasmosis ,which has been sited as a very likely cause in the rapid raise of Schizophrenia , the correlation is pretty solid , when one compares the rise in cat owner ship , close quarters living and the increase in Schizophrenia since the industrial revolution , there is enough research out there that pregnant women are advised not to change litter boxes of cats to avoid transmitting it to the unborn child , apparently as a man and being terrible with women this has never actually come up
there are many parasites that work like this , but Toxoplasmosis is pretty cool and it being already attuned to humans its evolutionary leap to us is not a big one , indeed it has already begun , how it works its diabolical , cats and mice live in close contact too each other so once a mouse becomes infected by way of coming into contact with cat feces the parasite turns off the part of its brain that says "cat are bad MMM K" and the mouse becomes fascinated and intrigued by cats until its eaten obviously by a cat , at which point the parasite breeds inside the cats stomach its eggs are pooped out and digested by everyone that comes into contact including us , as warm blooded mammals , we share a huge amount of genetic information with both cats and mice, it could just be causing Schizophrenia in its attempt to get us to eat mice but who knows what symptoms it may eventually evolve in humans , if it can cause delusions and hallucinations then aggression and ravenous hunger for red meat may not be a huge leap Cause three : Prions or Kuru
This one was discovered by an Aussie in Papua New Guinea a guy called W. T. Brown in the 1950's Kuru is a prion disease , basically its a misfolded protein in the brain and to draw a parallel it falls into the same category as mad cow disease and is caused by the same thing ,,,,CANNIBALISM!!!! , mad cow disease was caused by feeding the brains of the cows back to the cows , in an effort to be economical , but cannibalism especially of the brain can transmit these misfolded proteins and give you Kuru .In certain PNG tribes the burial custom was to eat the deceased , the men ate the brains and sweet breads( or organs ) the women and children the muscles ,,so when Kuru broke out it was generally within the male population, interestingly enough some mothers began to pass down a genetic resistance to Kuru to their off spring but this was not wide spread it can take between three months and 2 years to die of kuru and symptoms include ,unsteady stance and gait, decreased muscle control, tremors, deterioration of speech , ataxia (loss of muscle coordination) and severe tremors the victim is emotionally unstable, depressed, yet having uncontrolled sporadic laughter and dysphagia (difficulty swallowing) which could lead to uncontrollable hunger .....
aggression is a major symptom in mad cow disease so it is possible to develop in other prion strains including ours Possible world wide infection route : soylent green
Cause four : self replicating nano technology
This stuff is being researched right now, its in play for better or for worse and that includes the option of the doomsday nanobot , basically a huge scientific screw up the idea is that while researching nanotechnology for any application from medical to industrial or military the idea of self replication nanobots will come up , unless controlled these could theoretically once let out infect everyone and evolve into something completely different, and the natural order of evolution regardless of natural or man made is to replicate at any cost , this could lead to all sorts of imaginative techniques including turning humans into some sort of transmission device that may incidentally kill them in the process , if the nanobot needed to be transmitted via body fluids and decided it needed another host causing the host to bite another uninfected host is a very logical course of action and bam zombies every where !
Infection route : mad scientist syndrome
So thats all i have at the moment , i will keep updating this thread as i come across more in my travels , feel free to post any others i might have missed , i am sure there are plenty hope you enjoyed
