Zombie apocalypse is a scientific possibility.

I'm sure like me as soon as you hear the words zombie apocalypse you think it must be from a movie and not something that could happen in real life. Or could it?

I've seen a lot of zombie movies and always thought it is just a movie and couldn't happen in real life. I saw World War Z a zombie movie recently and it really made me think, is this type of scenario really a possibility?

The symptoms of being a zombie are insanity, rage, total loss of rational brain function, strong appetite to eat raw flesh and complete disregard for one's own safety.

Could a virus or disease cause similar symptoms? A mutated version of the rabies virus with increased adrenaline or something like that could cause zombie like symptoms.

The rabies virus infects the central nervous system, ultimately causing disease in the brain and death. The early symptoms of rabies in people are similar to that of many other illnesses, including fever, headache, and general weakness or discomfort. As the disease progresses, more specific symptoms appear and may include insomnia, anxiety, confusion, slight or partial paralysis, excitation, hallucinations, agitation, hypersalivation (increase in saliva), difficulty swallowing, and hydrophobia (fear of water). Death usually occurs within days of the onset of these symptoms.

www.cdc.gov...

I mention rabies as an example which most people are probably familiar with but there are a vast array of exotic viruses and diseases which could mutate and/or blend and cause zombie like symptoms in humans.

A virus or disease which is transmitted through saliva or biting the victim is highly contagious and causes rapid brain infection is a possibility. Symptoms to cause a zombie like state would include loss of higher functions and reasoning centres in the brain, loss of memory, uncontrollable appetite for flesh or raw meat, massively increased adrenaline could cause seemingly superhuman strength and resistance to pain and injury.

No one’s expecting the dead to rise again, of course, but there are so-called neurotropic viruses that attack our brains and cause aggressive or bizarre behavior.

Some existing neurotropic viruses are already the stuff of nightmares. For instance, “rabies is pretty scary on its own,” said Kartik Chandran, a microbiologist and immunologist at the Albert Einstein College in New York who studies the deadly Ebola virus. (In the movie and book, the zombie plague is first misidentified as rabies.)

Like the mythical zombie virus, rabies is transferred through biting. Once inside your body, the virus travels directly to your brain and “makes you go nuts and go and bite more people,” he said. More than 55,000 people, mostly in Africa and Asia, die from rabies every year, which is one person every ten minutes, according to the World Rabies Day website. Most infected people are bitten by rabid wildlife.

How would a “zombie virus” arise? One possibility is that two viruses could join together and form a hybrid.

Viruses work by copying their genetic material within human cells. If there are two viruses in the same cell, one virus may accidentally jump on a genetic copy that belongs to the other virus. The progenitor to the human HIV virus may have arisen this way in Africa when a chimpanzee and monkey virus combined, Chandran explained.

But there’s another way that a mutant virus can arise: if there’s a glitch in the genetic copying machinery of an existing virus. Sometimes, one of these mutations confers an advantage to the virus that allows the mutated strain to outcompete others and quickly take over the world.

That’s why the concept of a World War Z-like viral plague is not so far-fetched.

newswatch.nationalgeographic.com...


So it would seem there is a biological possibility based on medical science that a super virus or disease could actually mutate and evolve into something very similar to a zombie virus, which I thought was only in the movies.
I'm not saying the zombie apocalypse will happen anytime soon but I think it is a distinct possibility, albeit a very very remote one.

Scientists Discuss The Reality Of A Zombie Apocalypse: Exclusive October 31, 2013

“I think that the Zombie Virus already exists (almost): Rabies. Infection is nearly 100 percent lethal, i.e. it turns you into the walking dead (for a while at least), and it causes you to change your behavior by reprogramming you to bite other people to spread the infection. Now if only it kept the corpse walking around,” Jonathan D. Dinman, PhD, Professor in the Department of Cell Biology and Molecular Genetics at the University of Maryland

Some conspiracy theorists say a zombie virus is already here and its known as LQP-79. This virus is allegedly a “mental virus infection” that derived from the 79th attempt at developing a “Lysergic Quinine Protein” in a bid to create a mind control substance. According to theories, the virus was supposed to be contained to training facilities, but not only have samples been released, the media is playing cover-up by hiding information on this story from the public. Obviously, this story has been proven time and time again to be a hoax, but it has become so popular that even the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) acknowledged the term “LQP-79″ had been one of the top searched terms on the government agency’s website in May 2012.

www.redorbit.com...

I believe the US and Russia had extensive biological warfare programs during the cold war and beyond and we can only speculate as to what was created and what viruses and diseases where genetically modified for greater lethality.

The Walking Dead Doomsday and its flesh-eating monsters might be all fictional but Zombie Apocalypse could really happen in the future. JEB Editor Michael Dickinson introduced certain group of parasites that can infest brain and control the behavior of its host.
In an article by JEB reporter Kathryn Knight, she tackled Dickinson's findings about a specific type of parasites with the ability to control behavior of an individual by infesting his or her nervous system and influence behavior.

"The fact that parasites can so efficiently alter host behaviour is fascinating," Michael Dickinson, from the University of Washington

The parasites have already been linked with schizophrenia and other mental illnesses. The worst about the condition is it has no known cure for it so far and researchers are just starting to determine what other effects these parasites can do to the brains of its hosts.

au.ibtimes.com...





The more I see on infectious viruses and diseases the more disturbing it gets. There are a vast array of incredibly nasty and lethal pathogens which are constantly mutating and evolving. Our use and overuse of antibiotics is creating new antibiotic resistant bacteria which we have no effective means to combat. Although I think the probability of a zombie like pathogen mutating and causing an epidemic or pandemic is extremely low I think it is possible and could happen.

Now don't act all surprised when the zombie apocalypse happens.

A possibility? Oh, i think it's more than just a "possibility". Let facebook shut down. lmfao

I see them all now shuffling toward you with their distinctive, hunched over posture and claw-like hand.

"Appppsssss .... Apppppsssss ...."

They groan as they clutch for the devices they think you have.

reply to post by JimTSpock


Rabies mixing with toxoplasmosis?
The apocalypse would probably last a few weeks, I'll ride it out in my basement

Here is your zombie apocalypse...



I agree with the OP though. It appears the way that viruses mutate and change that it is scientifically possible to have a virus with "zombie like" traits to, one day, sweep the earth. Could be the next "flood" that cleanses the overpopulated earth.

I think if something like this was to happen we will see it as more like the "rage zombie" as seen in the movie 28 days later... 2011 Link to CalTech researchers turning on aggression in mice

mikeone718
reply to post by JimTSpock

 

Rabies mixing with toxoplasmosis?
The apocalypse would probably last a few weeks, I'll ride it out in my basement

There is a series of book by author E.E. Knight in which the earth is invaded by aliens. One of the initial phases involved an infection called "Ravies." It was a rabies-like virus that infected people and drove them violently mad. It caused widespread social chaos and breakdown. Then, the aliens came in and "saved" the remnants who were left, imposing a world-wide order where humans had to be "culled" to feed the aliens. They are told it is for the good of the environment and keeping humans in check and balance.

This hypothetical could be a lot like Ravies.

SgtHamsandwich
Here is your zombie apocalypse...

I agree with the OP though. It appears the way that viruses mutate and change that it is scientifically possible to have a virus with "zombie like" traits to, one day, sweep the earth. Could be the next "flood" that cleanses the overpopulated earth.

The irony is... I'm one of those people in the picture looking down at my phone and posting in this thread...

Oh boy...

What should really freak you out is the major advances in Bio-chemistry and their applications in both war and (even more disturbing) non-lethal riot control agents. Apparently it is not in violation of the Chemical Weapons Convention to develop drugs as weapons to be used to control the population of your own country should they become all unruly. They have advanced the science of all this to the point that these drugs can specifically target areas of your body as well as making them easier to inhale or absorb (gel based) after detonation of a weapon.

Remember the Syria attacks that caused all that what-not last year, the videos of that soldier eating the flesh of one of his kills?

Imagine a missile or even gas canister that releases a drug that can temporarily erase your memory, induces wildly vivid hallucinations and deadens your nerves to the sensations of pain or overwhelms you with euphoria. All of these drugs already exist, and can be easily combined and "juiced up", but what is perhaps most disturbing is that the side effects can in many ways be seen in what we call zombies.

Oh, and I will try to find it but, there was a government project back during the cold war where in they used chemicals to keep a group of soldiers awake for weeks until their minds broke and they all went insane. Violence ensued, naturally, but at one point one of the soldiers involved stated that they were "just embracing everything that was already inside all of us, that they were free."

reply to post by MALBOSIA


Yeah, me too. I won't deny it. Hahahaha

Zombies like in The Walking Dead, Zombieland or George Romero's movies would be Suh-Weet.

28 Days Later would be better than the future Elysium we are turning into. And the World War Z zombies are lame, that movie is lame.

I do hope everyday for a Zombie Apocalypse, and hopefully they won't die after a couple weeks like rabies. Then TPTB would still have control.

There is no better way for a humanity equalization and reset than The Walking Dead.

What would be more fun, short of being a Powerball winner?

reply to post by JimTSpock


Hello I'm Johnny Cash



No, I'm not Johnny Cash I just used his intro.
Hell of a thread OP

SnF

Of course zombies are a possibility. There are organisms which possess the capability to hijack the nervous system in order to optimize their hosts.

AfterInfinity
Of course zombies are a possibility. There are organisms which possess the capability to hijack the nervous system in order to optimize their hosts.

The scary concept of a "zombie" virus is the fact that the infected get up and seek out the uninfected in order to progress the spread of the virus.
During regular plagues and such, people whom become symptomatic tend to go into a unpopulated area and ultimately hide until they die or get better. Even with this measure, plagues and such spread rapidly. The idea of someone going to spread the virus purposefully, and those people then pushing forward and trying to spread it themselves. it would be a extinction level event, regardless of they were going to eat our brains.

Good doomsday material to think about. nothing else really comes close threat-wise than a good virus.

reply to post by JimTSpock


One only has to look on Facebook to see this is happening now! hahaha

Zombies are mindless drones that exist to spread their infection.

. . . . . . . . . . . oh god. . . . . . . . . . . . .

(I dated zombies in college!)

Now that would beat a carbomb, suicide-attack or ddos-attaxk for a little rebel now won't it?

According to the Monster Manual zombies are type undead. They can be turned by a cleric. So just make sure you have a cleric in your party and maybe some extra vials of Holy water.