The Science Behind A Zombie Apocalypse is Scarier Than You Think...

When you say the word “zombie” people often conjure up images of hordes of the undead walking the Earth and feasting on the living. This image has been greatly influenced by popular culture’s take on the phenomena which has even built on it to include diseases and science creating their own zombie hordes... But just how did this perception of zombies come about and is there any truth in it? 

Episode narrated by Top5s
Music by CO.AG

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

When you say the word zombie people often conjure images of horns of the end, dead walking the air and feasting on their living. This image has been greatly influenced by popular cultures, take on the phenomena, which is even built on to include diseases and science, creating their own zombie horns. But just how did this perception of zombie's come about? And is there any truth in it? Arguments continue over the origins of the zombie phenomena and even the word zombie itself. According to the Oxford English dictionary, the word zombie was first recorded into English in 1819 by European explorers in west Africa. In these areas, the word was used as an equivalent into qu or spirit English. Many people from this region were forcefully relocated as slaves to the Caribbean, taking their religious beliefs with them, which greatly began to merge with local beliefs. But as well as relocating the Africans, the European slaves also forced them to adopt Christianity. And this led to a degree of religious is confusion amongst the unfortunate slave and local populations. Something that continues to this day in Haiti, the word zombie already existed when the Africans arrived and was the name given to a snake, God, but this seemed to fall out of view, but it was during this time that the word zombie became associated with the apparent of the dead by Haiti and witch doctors. Since the African saw an apparent court come to life, these witch doctors achieve this Fe by putting people into a dead like state using either drugs or deep hypnosis, whereby externally, there was no indication of life in the body before then reviving them without modern men medical assessment techniques. It did appear that these witch doctors had revived the dead and the process was often so traumatic on the victim that they woke in a chance like state. Thus, we have both aspects of the modern perception of zombies death, and then rebirth into a subhuman level of consciousness and behavior. The, even the witch doctors believed in their power and many continue to do so to this day. In fact, in 1994, when the us threatened to invade Haiti, acting president a Emil, John warned the us troops would face of the three battalions of zombie soldiers. It is this fascinating phenomena that popular culture has taken to heart in decades. Although zombies have appeared in books and movies since the beginning of the 20th century, it was George a Romero's night of the living dead, which is cited as giving birth to the modern zombie genre. Despite the fact, the word zombie is never used once in the film with the continuing success of films and television shows such as world Warsi and the walking dead, and even the us center for disease control publishing a manual on how to survive an infestation of zombies. The public interest in the topic remains high. So just how real is this phenomena? And could we ever one day actually face a zombie apocalypse? Let's find out If we study the natural world for an answer, then we can see there are numerous examples of zombie per using diseases, flora, fungi, and even insects. And some of these can have startling effects on living creatures in the jungles of Thailand, a species of fungus called OFO cordyceps requires a lot of sunlight to survive and reproduce. And it has developed a frightening way of getting itself to the sun. It's this is control of the brain of an ant and forces it to climb above the cover of the vegetation on the ground. So it may bask in the sunlight grow and then release its spores. The unfortunate zombie ant is then left to die. When you consider that the fungus doesn't even have a brain of its own. This control of another creature is all the more remarkable of feet of nature. There are however creatures with their own brains who deliberately seek out and take full control of other creatures to make them do their bidding of zombies. In Japan, there exists a was called recliner, Val Niels, the female of which will attack a spider and APO eggs into the unfortunate acne abdomen. But that's not the end of it. Nobody is exactly sure why or how, but the spider's sole purpose then becomes to protect the eggs it has been invested with. In some cases, the spider has been observed abandoned in their old webs and constructing a new one in order to better protect its was bla. While they grow eventually the was bla start to consume the spider before evicting its car from the web and making it their own while they enter cocoons scientists, theorize that the Lai control the spider's behavior by injecting mind, altering hormones into them effectively, they are being drugged, but zombie inducing parasites are not just limited to the insect in the Southwest United States. The California kill fish is unfortunately in the grip of its own zombie apocalypse. Nearly the whole population is infected with parasitic worms, known as Trone, which live in their brains. And when enough of these accumulate, they begin to deliberately affect the fish's behavior. The worms themselves require in GE by birds to thrive. And so they seize control of the fish and make it behave in such a way that it attracts a predatory bird, which then dives down and catches the fish as the fish is consumed. So two are the wounds. The infection rate amongst the fish is so high that when in 2020 researchers at the scripts institution of oceanography at the university of California, San Diego wanted to investigate the impact they were having on the fish's behavior. They had to artificially inseminate eggs in a lab to reduce uninfected fish. The results found that the fish that were exposed to the worms after they matured, reacted less aggressively than those exposed to them, almost from birth in the wild. This implied that the species had learned to take actions against them, such as to try and rub them off their bodies before the parasite took hold. Whereas the lab fish who had no older fish to teach them this, let the parasites take hold more easily. So if the natural world is a water with zombie creatures, then can humans become zombie like as well as insects and fish. The answer is category. Yes. In recent years, a theory has emerged concerning toxic plasmas Gandhi, a parasite found in cat feces that it can make people like and want to be around cats in order to continue its lifecycle much like how the trama dos affect the kill fish. Although the parasite composed major problems for people with weakened immune systems, healthy people are generally capable of fighting it off without experiencing more than mild flu-like symptoms. Once the initial symptoms are over the protozone was believed to go into a dormant stage in the brain. But now researchers found that this may not be the case. Instead, recent studies have found that this protozone may actually be capable of I the host behavior, including humans, especially if they live in close proximity to a cat, researchers have even found evidence of toxoplasmosis. The disease caused by infection with tox plasma, Gandhi in ancient Egyptian mummies, a society that actually worshiped cats and at least 60 million people in the United States alone. I estimated to be infected with some degree today through contact with cat droppings in their pets lit trees. So while the internet may like to point in front of the idea of crazy cat people, the truth may very well be more insidious in nature. There is one thing that is most commonly attributed to zombie like behavior and worrying and humans are not immune. It isn't a parasite, but rather it's a viral disease that exists on every content on earth, except Antarctica. Rabies rabies is usually associated with the infection of dogs. Since 95% of human rabies is the result of a bite from an infected canine. But the truth is that it can be transmitted to, and from much domestic and wild animals or even people, the disease is passed by the Sali in the infected creature's mouth. And if left and treated before the incubation period is complete, it is fatal in almost every case as the disease takes hold. The infected person begins to exhibit irrational and often violent behavior, which is why it's associated with zombies. According to the world health organization, 70% of rabies cases involve people with what is known as the furious version of the virus. In these instances, people exhibit signs of hyperactivity or excitable behavior causing them to act irrationally. And it is at this point, they are most dangerous to others since they could become violent and injure people who then may become infected themselves at the same time, they will also develop a severe case of hydrophobia a fear of water. Since the virus affects the brain's ability tea to instruct the throat to swallow. This becomes such a concern for the sufferer of rabies. That even the thought of swallowing water is terrifying. Despite the fact he or she may be extremely dehydrated in some rare cases, the sufferer also has a growing aversion to draft gusts of air. At this late stage. Death usually occurs after just a few days due to cardio respiratory arrest, but it's not just physical illness that can create zombies and humans. The human brain is a miraculous achievement in itself being capable of extremely complex emotions and problem solving in order to compensate for humans, lack physical prowes compared to the predators that exist in nature. Unfortunately, that complexity leaves it vulnerable to disruption resulting in mental illness. One rare mental illness doved Coard syndrome has become known as walking Corp syndrome since it involves people who believe that either lacky organs or are in fact dead. Despite the fact they're walking around as normal, the set, the popular definition of what his zombie is, the illness was first identified in France in 1880 by neurologist, Jules Kohar who was treating a woman who believed she had no in and as a result didn't need to consume food. Despite his efforts, the unfortunate woman actually started herself to death. Perhaps most startling case associated with this syndrome was that of a British man known only as Graham Graham suffered from extreme depression and decided to end his own life by taking electrical appliance in the bath with him, the suicide attempt failed. But a few months later, Graham told doctors, he was convinced his brain was either dead or missing. And that consequently, he too was to, as a result, his behavior became increasingly irrational since he felt everything in his life was now pointless. He stopped eating or drinking requiring medical intervention to keep him alive. He also stopped caring about things that were previously important to him, such as his car, and was often found by friends and relatives in graveyards, because in his words, it was the closest. He could come to death with the condition afflicting less than no 0.7, 5% of the population neurologists were quick to study Graham and he became the first sufferer to under undergo brain scan. The results were just as startling as Graham's behavior doctors found that activity levels in the large area as a Al and PRAL brain that controls motor function, memory and sensory information were extremely low. Being similar to someone in a vegetative state neurologist, Steven Lori at the university of leg in Belgium said I've been analyzing P E T scans for 15 years. And I've never seen anyone who is on his feet, who was interacting with people with such an abnormal scan result. Graham's brain function resembles that of someone during anesthesia sleep. Seeing this pattern in someone who is awake is quite unique to my knowledge as the condition has become better. Understood in recent years, treating options are now available to doctors to encourage patients with this rare condition, including a mixture of psychological methods and certain medication such as antipsychotics and anti-anxiety medication. In some cases, electroconvulsive therapy is employed, sends small electrical currents to the brain, changing its chemistry configuration. This is a last result. However, as this therapy can cause additional brain damage resulting in memory loss and confusion, zombie like behavior can also be intentionally or unintentionally programmed into the brain. Behavioral psychology suggests that we learn through being act a certain way. Behaviorism was theorized by Dr. John Watson, who boasted that if he was given a dozen healthy infants, he could over time condition them to grow up to be anything regardless of their genetic or personality traits, doctors, lawyers, or artists. So why not zombies? There are of course more immediate ways of affecting someone's behavior in such a way that they become like zombies chemicals, such as alcohol antidepressants and psychotropic drugs being introduced into the body alter or inhibit the way the brain functions leading to changes in behavior. We are all familiar with stories of groups, of people who are intoxicated with alcohol or drug drugs going on a rampage because the substances they have used have temporarily altered their brains, lowering their inhibitions, causing hallucinations and increasing aggression. Although after knees are just temporary, however prolongs use of such chemicals can permanently alter the brain's functioning, leading to a reduction in its overall capability. The result of which can sometimes be a near permanent zombie like state, perhaps even more frighteningly in the last decade, Russia and the Ukraine have seen a startling rise in the use of, of a recreational drug that is sometimes referred to as the zombie drug known on the streets as crocodile. The drug is an illegally manufactured version of DEO morphine, variant of traditional morphine considered around 10 times more powerful. It is known as the zombie drug because as well as its powerful mental suppressive qualities, the toxicity of the substance as a result of the poor standard is manufactured actually starts eating away the flesh where it's injected in extreme cases, the flesh is rotted away to such an extent that it exposes the bone underneath to the lay person. Seeing someone stumbling through the streets, appearing badly conscious as they are high on the drug and with flesh rotting away on their body. It would appear as though they're looking at a full fledged zombie about 1 million people in Russia use crocodile according to a report by the New York state office of alcoholism and substance abuse services. Since 2013, the crocodile drug has now spread across Europe with confirmed use in Germany and Norway. While the first case made public in the UK occurred in 2019 in the us, the drug enforcement agency has investigated claims of its use in Arizona and Illinois, but issued a statement saying that no evidence had been found. And despite sensationalist news stories to the contrary, it seems that that as of mid 2021, this remains the case. So we have seen that there are numerous examples of zombies being created out of living things in nature, through illness, psychology, and the use of chemicals, but could people come back from the dead. As in most zombie movies, there have been in incidence threat history of people who have been considered dead and have rear woken later. Often these incidents can be attributed to poor medical knowledge resulting in an incorrect diagnosis, but even in recent history with modern technology, there seem to be incidents at the biologic on Friday, June 1st, 2012, a two year old Brazilian boy named Calvin Santos was receiving treatment for pneumonia at a hospital in the Brazilian city of Bellon. Calvin stopped breathing during his treatment. And at 7:40 PM, his parents were told that he had been pronounced dead. His body was released for burial. The next day it'd been wrapped in an air type plastic bag for transport. However, during the funeral, the family claimed that the boy suddenly woke up and asked for a glass of water. The family believed that a miracle had happened, but then around two hours later, the boy died again. When they felt it was clear, he would never wake up. His second time, they buried him in July, 2014, a three year old girl in the Philippines who had died in hospital. A few days, her was in her coffin. When a neighbor noticed her head move, the family had then watched as she started breathing again, before waking up, she was rushed back to the hospital where stunned doctors declared a fit and healthy before she was allowed to go home. It's difficult to investigate what happened in both these cases, since they define modern medicine. The, even when we consider the fact these incidents occurred in the third world, the available technology and experience of doctors in both cases suggested that they were dead with neither child having a pulse or breathing, but this can possibly be true. Can it, what are the possible explanations for these events? The two most obvious answers are the doctors were mistaken and secondly, they are hoaxes. Doctors are not infallible, but it seems hard to believe that in both cases they missed evidence. These children were still alive since establishing a patient is alive, is the most fundamental aspect of medicine. If they are hoaxes, then they are well perpetrated ones, having convinced journalists and medical professionals alike. But is there evidence to suggest that a deceased person can actually come back from the dead in 2016 doctors from Philadelphia based Bioko Inc hope the trial, a potential or world changing technique, which aim to grow neurons in a dead brain and force them to react with one another. The theory goes that eventually the brain would be restarted and it would then start instructing the body to function. Again, the doctors at Bioko along with Ravita life services form the REAN project, and believe they can achieve this by injecting stem cells into the spinal cords of people who have been declared clinically brain dead, the subject will then receive an injection protein blend and undergo electrical nerve stimulation and laser therapy all directed at the brain in order to force it to react and potentially return it to light. It sounds farfetched of the group claims to have already had some limited success in their early trials with patients in Europe who were clinically brain dead, but their body still remaining viable. However, full trials that were planned to take place in India in 2016 were canceled because of bureaucratic reasons with the Indian government and the project has since sought another country to carry out experiments in the face of the intense criticism in the United States, especially the project claimed in 2016 to have had permission from an undisclosed Latin American country to begin trials, but they also failed to materialize media reports in 2220, then stated that 20 so-called living cadaver patients been selected from an African country to take part in the project. These were people who were effectively brain dead and being kept alive solely on machines. But in 2019 bio work rebuffed the reports, but claimed that limited trials were being undertaken at hospitals in India. The projects leaders have said publicly that they firmly that these trials are the first stage to effectively reverse death. If that's true, could it be possible that the effect the project's effort will have on the human body could also be achieved naturally in some way, possibly the environmental factors at play. Could this offer an explanation for what happened in the case of Calvin and the girl in the Philippines, the, until the reanimate project publish their findings? We can't really say one way or another. Since it's currently beyond medical sciences, definitions of life and death and the tools with which it categorizes such definitions. Another possible explanation for these cases is that they end a brief period of deep human hibernation that exist between a coma and file death humans have in the past shown a remarkable ability to lower body function and activity in order to survive in 2006, Tica GCI Koshi went missing on man Roco in Western Japan, as days turn to weeks. Many of the search parties began to give up hope of finding him alive. As the area was blanketed in snow, and temperatures had dropped a freezing incredibly, however, he was found alive 24 days later, having survived by entering a state of nearly suspended animation doctors, examining him, found his organs had effectively shut down and metabolism had slowed almost to a standstill. His body temperature had dropped at just 22 degrees. CELs when the normal temperature is 37 degrees, but despite all this, he made a full recovery and even more incredible example of human hibernation is the story of Canadian toddler Aric Nordby in 2001, she wandered outside at the night in subzero conditions and was later found by a mother almost frozen solid in her case, doctors pronounced her clinically dead. Since her heart had stopped beating for two hours and her temperature had dropped to 16 degrees Celsius yet, despite this AKA's body restarted and li Mitz attacker, she made a full recovery. If humans are capable of achieving such dead like states of hibernation, then it's possible that Calvin Santos and the girl in the Philippines experienced a form of this human hibernation. The obvious difference is the claim in which these incidents in Japan and Canada took place, but Santos was himself suffering from pneumonia when he was admitted hospital. And it's possible. This could have triggered the hibernation in some way. Again, unfortunately you may never know, but in the wake of Eureka Norby case, the real question that needs to be asked is should we redefine the parameters of what is dead and alive? Because as we saw with her, she was in medical terms dead. Since there are examples of zombie inducing diseases and chemicals, then we have to ask ourselves whether a zombie apocalypse is actually a possibility, even though we have now seen cases of the dead coming back to life, it's highly unlikely. We would ever see a walking dead like scenario ever happening. However, that is not to say that a zombie apocalypse is beyond a possibility entirely. The most likely cause for a zombie like outbreak will be from a disease such as the human rabies virus currently in the state of cack in Malaysia, there is an ongoing rabies outbreak that has claimed 33 lies between the initial in 2017 and mid 2021. The first victims were a six year old girl and her four year old brother. And within days two more children were killed by it. A lack of information to the public regarding the seriousness of the situation was thoughts being major contributing factor in how quickly the disease spread and the panic that followed by 2021. The infection rate appeared to be slowing down due to an action on the part of local authorities and an increase in vaccination efforts. What concerns many medical experts, however, is that there seem to be cases where the vaccine for rabies does not work in 2015, a six year old boy in Tania was given the rabies vaccine the same day. He was bitten by an infected dog, and there should have been enough to prevent the disease from completing its incubation period. Unfortunately two and a half weeks later, the boy began exhibiting strange behavior. And when he was taken back to the, they found he was still infected by rabies and died a short while later a similar incident took place in Thailand in 2009. And again, a year later in India, this failure rate is thankfully rare with figures released in Canada in 1997, putting it out to just 47, outta 15 million treatments worldwide. There are two possible cases for the vaccine failing either it's rendered useless by poor storage practices or that the bite itself from an infected animal was not properly tended to. However, if the rabies virus were to mutate to such an extent that a vaccine might be rendered totally ineffective, then the result could be apocalyptic. One of the major of a is zombie apocalypse is the alter behavior of those infected and the consequences that would have for society at large. While we have already looked at mind, altering chemicals, affecting individuals, could there be a way of affecting huge numbers of people and bring about a chemically produced zombie apocalypse while in the 1960s, Dr. Johnson was serving as an MP in Britain when he repeatedly expressed his fear that London's ability to function could be destroyed within eight hours. As the population descended into a state of madness and anarchy, he was referring to his belief that London's weather supply could theoretically be contaminated with LSD and reflects the fear among the ruling middle and upper acid at the time of the growing problem of drug induced crime, while it's possible on paper to contaminate a city's water supply in such a way, it is simply not practical. It would require a truly industrial effort to reduce enough LSD to affect London's population. Firstly, the water would dilute any LSD added to it. Secondly, the purification process would break it down and even exposure to sunlight would destroy it. However, there are other ways to contaminate the population and cause the kind of results Dr. Johnson feared in 2013, video game developer Northy dog released their critically acclaimed. The last of us sat in a world that had suffered in our outbreak of a human strain of the zombie fungus that affects ants in Thailand. While the type of fungal zombie outbreak in the video game is quite implausible. It is not beyond the realm of possibility that rampant fungal infections can affect the behavior of a large population. And there is a precedent for it on August 15th, 1951, the French town upon is street found itself in the grip of a seemingly uncontrollable and sudden madness. Over 250 people were affected by it leading to mass hallucinations self-inflicted injuries, paranoia and violence in one case an otherwise well behaved 11 year old boy tried to strangle his grandmother and a Fren. He attack. In another case, a man believed he was an airplane and Lapide to a second floor window. While one man begged a doctor to help him find his heart, which he said had escaped his body. Seven deaths occurred while the town was in the grip of the advents or 50 people were affected to such an extent. They were committed to psychiatric hospitals. The source of the outbreak was traced back to contaminated bread, but just what it was contaminated with has been debated ever since I got poisoning from ingested, ays produced a type of fungus that affects rye and other cereals and has a hallucinogenic properties has been largely accepted as the cause. However, in recent years, researchers have claimed that evidence has been uncovered, that the CIA were involved in lacing the bread of the LSD as part of a research effort into weaponizing the drug in 2010, the author HB Elli Jr. Published terrible mistake, the murder of Frank Olson and the CIA's secret cold war experiments within which he claims to have seen an internal white house document highlighting an investigation into abuse by members of the CIA once such document was a list of French nationals on the CIA's payroll and made references to Theon cent dispute incident, regardless of who is to blame, the incident does prove that a population can have their behavior affected on mass by an external source. However, there are more cere ways that a zombie apocalypse could occur earlier. We looked at Dr. Watson's belief that anyone can be conditioned to behave a certain way, including like a zombie. If that was the desired result, it is also possible for people to adopt certain behaviors, even psychological conditions. If they believe they're at risk or it in 2012, 19 girls who attended Leroy high school started to develop ticks and twitches associated with Tourettes, the outbreak, baffled medical experts and led to speculation that a chemical spill that had a occurred after a train derailed in the area in the 1970s was somehow to blame others believed the girls were victims of some new kind of recreational drug, but both theories were dismissed due to a lack of evidence in toxicology tests on the girls, some neurologists, however, put forward the belief that a combination of stress and relative communal isolation caused the girls to experience a form of mass hysteria. In essence, the girls believed they were vulnerable to developing the affliction and as such, they learned how to suffer from it. Social media, such as Facebook and YouTube were even cited as having heavily contributed to the situation with the girls, that bloating videos of themselves as they, and this subconsciously instructed the next sufferer, how they should behave at the next stage. If this is true, then it would not be beyond the realm of possibility that a small and isolated community could experience a Zobe outbreak. If one person started behaving like one and others believed enough that it could happen to them as well, this belief would be especially effective. If it seemed to affect a specific type of person, such as gender and age, which were major factors in the Leroy case, social media and news coverage would only further reinforce this belief and instruct people how to behave. Even if they knew it was wrong or not normal. It sounds farfetched, but ask yourself this. How many times have you seen someone YN and then involuntary YN, even though you weren't feeling tired.