Zombies – Could they be real one day?
Posted by Rob in Google Reader Shared Items, tags: interesting, moviesIt seems I've been rewatching a lot of Zombie movies lately. Not really sure why – perhaps my subconscious is telling me to get prepared!
Get prepared, you scoff. Get prepared for what? An idea that some guy dreamed up for some book or movie years ago? But I'm serious. Is it possible that we could see a zombie outbreak at some point in our future?
Well I've done a little poking around, not a lot mind you. But enough to see that yes it could happen, given the right set of circumstances. And those circumstances aren't that far fetched.
Now I'm no scientist. I don't have a degree or really any formal education in biology or chemistry, but to my mind this is a possibility. Especially in light of things like "Mad Cow" disease, the avian flu and more recently H1N1, also known as swine flu.
You see, what makes me think this could happen are just these types of diseases. That generally start out infecting animals, but somehow manage to infect humans. Just look at how fast swine flu is spreading now. Sure it doesn't seem to affect a lot of people, and most recover, but the fact that it spread so quickly is what concerns me.
Why am I concerned?
Because, in my research, I came across an article talking about a parasite called Toxoplasma gondii. This article talks about an interesting study where rats infected with this parasite have their brains altered, losing some, if not all, of their self control. The article goes on to say that human brains are very similar to rats brains in their makeup, and in fact some humans actually carry this parasite around, not even knowing it.
The article also talks about a few other parasites and virus which could cause similar symptoms in other animals.
So that got me thinking – if Swine flu is transferable to humans, and causes flu-like symptoms which can lead to death, wouldn’t it make sense that at some point something like toxoplasma gondii could mutate and “jump” from it’s animal host to humans, causing something akin to zombieism?
Granted a straight "jump" probably wouldn't result in a "classic" zombie – one who has died and come back to life, but what if such a parasite were to evolve, then jump to humans where it killed them, only to reanimate the body? Then you'd have a zombie!
What do you think? Are zombies a real possibility in our future? And if so, are you prepared?
Tags: interesting, movies
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