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Of the type often seen in movies where the body is rotten, no. Dead tissue doesn’t move.
However, there are approximations:
For starters there’s a type of fungus that hijacks ants, using it to spread its spores into other ants. It can control the ants movement to the point where it will cause the and to go to certain good spore-spread8ng places before the ant is devoured.
Then there’s the disease that affects raindeer in some places. I don’t remember the illness, but basically the mind goes byebye while the body is left to be controlled by less and less sophisticated parts of the brain, to the point where the animal can do nothing but walk in circles.
The deer one is chronic wasting disease
I’ve heard concern of it becoming a pandemic in deer populations and also scientists are worried it’ll spread to people!
Yaaaaaaaaay. 🫠
It’s bonkers. It’s resistant to everything, persists after being burned, etc.
It’s wild. Even after a deer with it dies it can remain in the soil for a couple of years. Burning and chemicals doesn’t affect it. The prion is just there, hanging out, waiting in the soil and water until another deer comes along and gets it doing normal deer things.
It’s caused by prions, which are definitely able to infect humans.
Prions are absolutely terrifying
I agree. I knew nothing about them until I went down a kuru rabbit hole the other night. Extremely freaky.
I mean, those fungi are crazy.
But my money is either on a rabies or toxoplasmosis mutation for the zombie apocalypse.
They wouldn’t be the living dead, and I dont think there’d be anything to stop them from attacking each other, but that’s be pretty close to zombies.
Just feral humans without higher brain function trying to attack and eat anything they can.
Figures we’d get runners. Can’t catch a damn break.
Rabies is similar as well.
imagine being a spore and becoming conscious inside an ant, with an animal’s brain.
CWD is a prion, which is terrifying. that’s also why it can live on corpses and even survive in vegetation
Undead Zombies? No. I’m no virologist, but I’ve read about a Rabies variety, or certain fungal infections. Fiction-wise, World War Z, or 28 Days type “zombies”, where the body is very much functioning, but the brain has been hijacked…
Which in theory with any sort of living zombie all you’d need to do is wait out the zombies for a few weeks/months while they inevitably starve to death.
all you’d need to do is wait out the zombies for a few weeks/months
Because wht we learned in the last couple of years is humanity as a whole is totally capable of isolating for a few months without issues
Feel like watching your neighbor eat the face off of your other neighbor is a little bit more motivation to stay inside than a microscopic virus. Then again, it isn’t the most wise thing to bet against human stupidity
Yeah but what if you run out of toilet paper?
Or need a haircut?
The zombies outside: braaaaids
Then I started blasting.
You couldn’t wait them out…
They wouldn’t just eat people, they’d eat anything. Lots of chance for cross species transmission which would come back to humans later. It wouldn’t just be human to human transmission.
If we get viral zombies, that’d just be something we have to always deal with a little bit for centuries.
Fuck, imagine the balls to go camping knowing some crazy feral human that had been living in the woods for either days or years might be attracted to your fire.
Some antivaxxer CrossFit club gets a breakout and the whole neighborhood is fucked.
I assume they would starve as humans are only good at hunting because of tools. Helpfully we’re not getting the Land of the Dead variety of zombie that is smart enough to use tools.
Oh and exposure would probably get them too
The weakest would die and the rest would eat them…
It’s what happens with locust swarms, you stop moving you become food.
An average person in the woods? Yeah. Probably won’t last too long. But it takes a couple weeks to actually starve.
Then animals eat them, and maybe they get infected. Maybe that goes back to humans eventually?
We still have polio outbreaks, something like this wouldn’t just die out in a few months, or even years.
Rare cases would keep popping up, and outbreaks will keep happening.
Only carrion animals are going to eat those bodies. Unless they poison a water supply, it’ll be fairly limited for it being a hotspot for infection.
28 day/weeks later had an infected crow drip blood in a guys eyes and infected him…
More animals than you think wouldnt pass up some free meat on the ground.
Birds, oppousms, racoons, wolves/coyotes/dogs, foxes, rodents…
And even more that would scavanege tiny pieces from every kill site.
Mice would honestly be the worse, and most likely.
It’s not about them spreading thru attack, just coming into contact with humans.
What about insects, like mosquitoes or spiders?
Yeah I can see what you mean. Reminiscent of 28 Weeks Later.
THE ECONOMY! Everyone must return to work, despite the very low and acceptable risk of being eaten by zombies, in order to keep our real estate investments worthwhile.
If we did the traditional 40 day quarantine of old rather than the shitty 2 weeks lockdown we may have lowered the spread better… But even China tried hard to do zero covid and eventually succumbed 2022 when covid still managed to go out of control
Or they’re eaten by birds and dogs
Yeah, but there is always a timer on those, at the end of which the body is gonna be useless, and it’s not long.
the type for brain hijacking definately, as theres a fungus that brainhijacks ants.
the type that that works on dead people, likely not. all viruses and stuff survive by trying to keep their host alive. the ones that kill their host die off quick.
By definition? No. Don’t listen to any of these, “exceptions.” You asked a direct question and the direct answer is no.
We call them Republicans here in the US
AfDler in Germany
Yes but in a different way than literal. Zombie movies tap into a fear of a real-life monster called The Mob. When people become part of a Mob, they lose their humanity, and will destroy you mindlessly.
Like, if you see an angry mob coming your way, you need to treat it like a zombie situation. And the instinctual, evolved fear of that mob is exactly what zombie movies evoke in us.
I never saw it like that but it makes sense tbf
Yup. And so, in a way, zombies are a real possibilities.
A zombie, an undead creature who craves human flesh, isn’t a real possibility (yet).
But zombies, as a situation a person might have to deal with, actually can happen. You’re boarding up the windows. They’re walking by outside, at a steady pace. You’re hoping they don’t notice you.
A mob coming up the street is a slow zombie horde. They’re just slowly filling the street.
A mob that targets you is a fast zombie situation. You need to sprint and will die if caught. You won’t get eaten but you will get beat to death which is basically the same kind of death.
Guns are useless: you’ve got limited ammo and it draws more of them.
And finally the feeling is eerie because people in a mob don’t see you as a person. Being part of a mob is an instinctual experience. It shifts the psychology and cuts out deliberation and inhibition. Members of a mob are in an altered state of mind, which creates an eerie, inhuman feeling.
I’ve seen a living zombie hoard before, at a dump in Nicaragua where they lived. I was told they got high on sniffing shoe glue, which literally causes the brain to decay while they’re still “alive,” but they just shambled around in a big mob, seemingly aimlessly, with glue smeared under their noses.
No, until yes.
Atypical rabies I would say would be pretty close. Good thing rabies is pretty rare.
Thanks Michael Scott!
It’s all about the optics.
Without the giant check and medical professional presenting it, no one would even know Meredith got hit by a car
I don’t know if there’s video anywhere of a person who had rabies, but I imagine it wouldn’t be that different from zombie movies, or the rage virus.
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Which version? If all you need is an uncoordinated, dopey person, I’m right here. /s
If undeath is required, no. It’s not even a concept that makes much sense without mind-body dualism, which is all but ruled out scientifically.
If this stuff sarts infecting humans yes. .
As with other versions, it’s not impossible but the zombie is unlikely to he viable more than a couple weeks, as decomposition doesn’t stop.
The closest that I know of that’s known and possible is with a fungus. Possibly a parasite, but probably fungal.
Some parasites, especially those that infect insects, can cause the host to go crazy, for lack of a better word, and “infect” others through bodily fluid transfer. Fungal is similar; IMO, fungal would be my guess since to me, given how large fungal networks and organisms can be, it would be the most likely candidate to adapt to the size and scale required to control a human.
However, it is unlikely. There’s a pretty slim margin between being infectious enough to be viable and so infectious the host dies before there can be any useful progression of the disease. It’s just a very fine line.
Depending on what version of zombies you’re thinking of, it may be more, or less zombie-like. In the case of the walking dead? No. Not really possible. Maybe in a million years, caused by nano scale machines, where the machines more or less use your corpse as meat armor… But that’s a very long way from becoming a reality. The "real zombies would be more like possessed living people, still vulnerable to the same dangers as other living humans. If you shoot them, they will die. They wouldn’t be super strong, maybe mildly more strong than they were when they were living, simply based on the fact that we tend to hold ourselves back a bit when it comes to our strength because we want to avoid damaging ourselves too much during the effort… “Zombies” wouldn’t have those concerns so they may be stronger, but not so significantly that it would matter all that much.
Skin appearance may be affected due to the infection and may cause the flesh to appear sticky.
Since most higher brain functions would be suppressed, tactics and planning would not be possible, or at least, extremely limited, and most advanced skills would also be unavailable (working tools or machinery). There would also be very little in terms of language skills, if any.
Since the infected would have the primary goal of spreading the infection, they likely wouldn’t eat or sustain themselves in any meaningful way, leading to death in a matter of days, maybe a week or so, at most. Zombies would probably smell of human excrement, since the infected wouldn’t be concerned about where they relieve themselves and likely just piss or shit right in their pants as the need arises.
TL:DR: they would be far shorter lived and far less dangerous than seen on TV but it’s possible that a parasite or fungus could invoke such tenancies
Yes, biologically speaking there is a fungus that can control and takeover ants body.
Except that fungus can’t live in high temperatures that are inside a human body… at least, not ones we know about right now…
Well, the post didn’t specify “human” zombies so at least it is true that ant zombies exist
If we set aside Hollywood for a moment to talk about something unexpected… this is a completely serious and rather interesting subject of study:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_zombie
My position on the matter is that it is quite easy to design systems that are to some degree “intelligent” (for most definitions of intelligence), without possessing qualia (consciousness, subjective experience). Several such systems exist, and you have probably heard of them!
Moreover, I think many natural persons can be intelligent without being conscious, at least sometimes. I think many people have this experience when working on difficult problems, e.g. programming.
For Hollywood-style zombies? I would start with chemistry rather than biology. There are many substances that can alter our mood, body control, aggression, and consciousness. Find a mix that creates the effect you want, and create an implant (or make it an addictive drug mixture). Probably the result would be less consistent than hollywood-style zombies. It would not be contagious though.
Or if sci-fi, insert genes into a living person that encodes a system to internally synthesize the drug mix.
Edit: Something that makes most people into shuffling drones? Increases aggression? Spreads like a disease? A cynical answer would be that we have invented that already. We call it “capital”.
