5 Scientific Reasons a Zombie Apocalypse Could Happen

[brekin]

It's funny because it's true. Sort of.

via Cracked.com

http://www.cracked.com/article_15643_5- ... appen.html

[Stephen Morgan]

There are already enough zombies around to prompt the government of Haiti to make zombification a crime. People have even been recovered and brought back to their normal selves from being zombies (as a real zombie is not dead but merely enslaved through the sophisticated use of drugs).

Shamans have to get their slaves from somewhere, after all. And you though mind control was new!

http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a990521.html

[lunarose]

The Serpent and the Rainbow by Wade Davis is THE BOOK about how to make zombies. the Straight Dope article leaves out the effect of puffer fish toxin on sashimi gourmets who eat it in Japan - if they ingest the right dose, they become conscious, but with no signs of life, in the morgue. Japan has instituted a protocol where anyone suspected of this poisoning is watched until they either revive or show signs of putrfecation, the only sure sign of death.

INTERESTINGLY ENOUGH (this topic is bringing on a case of capitalization!) this ties in with making zombies. the normal course when a person dies in haiti is to wait a few days before burial. Davis was able to trace some zombie's stories and found that they were buried the same day as they died, or within hours, breaking the normal protocol. Straight Dope also leaves out at least one case in which the zombie was id'd by fingerprints, tying him to his death and burial records. this guy was the biggest asshole - stole inheritances from relatives, stole land, slept with other men's wives, etc. all the transgressions which are considered cause for a person to be zombified.

Straight Dope also leaves out the role of datura, a strong hallucinogen which is administered to the zombie-in-process when they are dug up from the grave. datura can cause a psychotic break, in haitian vodoo terms seperating the 'will' from the body. zombies are also starved of protein and subjected to more psychotic drugs as necessary to keep them seperated from their will. this is why zombies can recover - given a decent diet and a break from the psychotic drugs, their system can repair itself. as i recall, according to haitian voodoo zombification is not so much a physical process, more it breaks apart the various 'souls' which imbue a body with will, memeory, vitality, etc. for a great explanation of voodoo, see The Divine Horsemen by Maya Deren - book and movie of the same name. voodoo is similar to huna in the way it views the various 'souls', but i can't remember it precisely offhand and i don't have Deren here. also a great resource if you are interested in POSESSION.

[brekin]

Number 4 of the Cracked.com article actually covers alot of the above mentioned, with links: http://www.cracked.com/article_15643_p2.html

4.Neurotoxins

As seen in ...
The movie The Serpent and the Rainbow, the upcoming Resident Evil 5 video game.

What are they?
There are certain kinds of poisons that slow your bodily functions to the point that you'll be considered dead, even to a doctor (okay, maybe not to a good doctor). The poison from fugu (Japanese blowfish) can do this.

The victims can then be brought back under the effects of a drug like datura stramonium (or other chemicals called alkaloids) that leave them in a trance-like state with no memory, but still able to perform simple tasks like eating, sleeping, moaning and shambling around with their arms outstretched.

How it can result in zombies:
"Can?" How about "does."

This stuff has happened in Haiti; that's where the word "zombie" comes from. There are books about it, the most famous ones by Dr. Wade Davis (Passage of Darkness and The Serpent and the Rainbow). Yes, the movie The Serpent and the Rainbow was based on this guy's actual science stuff. How much of it was fact? Well, there was that one scene where they strapped the guy naked to a chair and drove a huge spike through his balls. We're hoping that part wasn't true.

What is definitely true is the story of Clairvius Narcisse. He was a Haitian guy who was declared dead by two doctors and buried in 1962. They found him wandering around the village 18 years later. It turned out the local voodoo priests had been using naturally occurring chemicals to basically zombify people and putting them to work on the sugar plantations (no, really).

So, the next time you're pouring a little packet of sugar into your coffee, remember that it may have been handled by a zombie at some point.

Chances this could cause a zombie apocalypse:
On the one hand, it's already fucking happened! So that earns it some street cred right off the bat. But, even if some evil genius intentionally distributed alkaloid toxins to a population to turn them into a shambling, mindless horde, there is no way to make these zombies aggressive or cannabalistic.

Yet.

[Joe Hillshoist]

this guy was the biggest asshole - stole inheritances from relatives, stole land, slept with other men's wives, etc. all the transgressions which are considered cause for a person to be zombified.

I wonder what other arseholes could be zombified.

Maybe we need a list.

I was gonna say Andrew Bolt. (Aust'n columnist who recently claimed the Iraq war had been won.)

But there's a whole lot of other people including the usual suspects.

[lunarose]

oh, mr. hillshoist, you've opened a can of worms!

[Joe Hillshoist]

I hope so.