Zombie decomposition and death

reply to post by davidtheriault


Like how mutations are handed down

In some instances, zombies are animated by magic. So their rotting flesh and muscle is not an issue. Skeletons that would otherwise fall apart are bound by this magic called necromancy. So they can last as long as the level of the Necromancer casting the spell or raising the dead level.
Pure fantasy!

But the science fiction zombie ideas are I suppose already a part of our culture. How long could those zombies last? They will last as long until they turn into maggot/insect pool. You would be dealing with a lot of crawlers after the first couple months. After that, it would be the living I would be worried about.

Originally posted by wWizard
In order for a corpse to animate, it would absolutely need major organs. The muscles need oxygen in order to work. The heart pumps blood which carries oxygen-rich cells to the muscles and carries away waste produced by working muscles. this means the respiratory organs would also need to work. The liver would need to work. All major organs would be necessary, therefore a typical zombie would most likely not look all decomposed and stuff. It would probably look mostly healthy aside from some blood on his clothes.

Sorry, wWizard but you are wrong. Though cells and flesh need oxygen to be maintained and also to produce their own electricity, muscles do not need oxygen to function and that is proven scientific fact going back to the discovery of electricity.

In fact I remember watching a pretty good show on the discovery channel on the history of the story "Frankenstein" and it covered many scientists that in the early days of electricity ran around performing demonstrations of electrifying dead animals and even corpses to make them move their arms legs and various muscle groups. It was actually those early scientists that inspired Mary Shelly to write Frankenstein and I would say they more then Haiti are the true originators of the Wests fascination with the ideas of zombies. There were even early industrialists that because of the demonstrations imagined a day when corpses would be brought back to life and used like machines to work in factories, using electricity. I would say luckily that dystopian industrial dream never paned out.

Sorry for going off on a tangent but yes actually muscles can still function without oxygen if you had another source of electrical generation besides the mito condrial DNA, maybe like an electricity generating virus or bacteria, but yeah the idea is so far fetched that it's not really worth worrying about.

reply to post by prisoneronashipoffools


Yes, you're right, it would be anaerobic activity, and they could function for a short while, but we're talking minutes, not weeks.

Lactic acid and waste by-product accumulate very fast during anaerobic periods. Calories are burned inefficiently and the glucose and creatine stores are exhausted quickly.

Even with an external electrical force to fire the muscles, the cells would still begin to die and deteriorate as soon as the normal life force were cut off. A real life "walking dead" would be possible for a few hours, and might be animated for a few days, but it wouldn't be very dangerous, it wouldn't be able to hold itself upright or balance or perform complicated maneuvers that require intense stabilizing forces and leverage on the bones.

Originally posted by getreadyalready
reply to post by prisoneronashipoffools

 

Yes, you're right, it would be anaerobic activity, and they could function for a short while, but we're talking minutes, not weeks.

Lactic acid and waste by-product accumulate very fast during anaerobic periods. Calories are burned inefficiently and the glucose and creatine stores are exhausted quickly.

Even with an external electrical force to fire the muscles, the cells would still begin to die and deteriorate as soon as the normal life force were cut off. A real life "walking dead" would be possible for a few hours, and might be animated for a few days, but it wouldn't be very dangerous, it wouldn't be able to hold itself upright or balance or perform complicated maneuvers that require intense stabilizing forces and leverage on the bones.

edit on 28-5-2012 by getreadyalready because: (no reason given)

Yes you are right as well. The many problems you mentioned is exactly why we don't have factories full of dead workers today, as a at least a couple of early industrialists dreamed. I also find the idea of a zombie apocalypse to be so far fetched as to be nothing more than an idle curiosity for people to think about.

Also if anything like it were to occur, it would have to be a disease pathogen infecting living people and driving them crazy. Like the idea of the rage virus from "28 days later" or fast acting rabies or etc. Of course the good thing about a scenario like that is, you wouldn't even have to fight the "zombies", but instead just isolate yourself in a well fortified and well supplied place and wait for the infection to run through the population and then eventually kill the hosts, thus burning itself out.

Thanks for the reply

reply to post by prisoneronashipoffools


I'm definitely not afraid of a big zombie outbreak, but it is a nifty vehicle to an important discussion. My wife loves zombies. Because of her love of zombies, she now knows that in a SHTF scenario, she should cut off her hair, have good shoes, be in good shape, etc. She also drives a jeep, and the jeep is armed with a machete by the driver's seat. She also learned to shoot a gun. Because of all that, she is now much more in-tune with other SHTF scenarios, and we now have a garden, and a stocked pond, and chickens, and a home that is close to town but also a little isolated, natural barriers on 3 sides, and easily fortified.

Without zombies, it would have been very difficult to transition into all the other discussions.

It is important to know how to prepare for a zombie apocalypse, because it is light-hearted, and still legal. Many of the other scenarios are taboo.

Maybe some people take it seriously, but I see it as a fun and useful vehicle to more important topics.

Hes bavk from dead, girly mon!

Wow anything to do with zombies attracts a lot of hate on this site huh.

I don't get why people come on here and waste their time just to give this guy crap bout a theoretical question he asked? Notice that at the start he said "IF", he didn't say WHEN or that this is really going to happen.

IMO this is a cool question you've asked OP and is one of those funny theoretical questions that can just pop into your head sometimes and really gets you thinking ( which I do a lot ) and don't see anything wrong with asking people who would know the scientific facts what would happen in this situation.

I'm enjoying the thread so far (apart from all the unnecesary hate) and has really got me thinking on the subject too

Thanks man