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Is rich and varied. We’ve seen everything from the as victim to the as monster – from the slow, foot-dragging zombie to the World War Z-brand horrifying, super-fast zombie to the stupid, instinct-driven zombie to the problem-solving, tool-using zombie.For the most part, the cardinal rule of taking out zombies is this: Shoot them in the head or strike a blow that results in a catastrophic brain injury. Prevailing wisdom is that the brain is the center of activity, even in the undead.
Most zombie stories also center around zombification by way of virus. But let’s consider for a moment the real-life zombification that takes place in the natural world. Because it’s real.It’s just not quite what you might imagine.
IRL aren’t typically infected by viruses, but are taken over by parasites who wrest control of their bodies, muscles, and nervous systems. Granted, we’re not exactly looking at cases of full-on zombie, but with the infection of certain parasites, observable changes in behavior, movement, motivation and cognitive activity have been: wasps taking over the bodies and minds of cockroaches, parasitic fungus changing the behavior of ants, a particularly nasty parasite called Toxoplasma gondii wreaking havoc on rats, cats, puppies, and people.Parasites don’t necessarily creep in and infiltrate bodies in their entirety, but instead manipulate animal behaviors and personalities. It’s not arms-out, groaning, brain thirst, but it’s de facto. What does that mean in the broader context of the zombie paradigm, though?Well, it sure feels like there’s some untapped potential in zombies. Viruses are the popular route, but parasites present some intriguing possibilities. In fact, it’s parasites, even more than viruses, that really drive home the central theme and fear that resides at the heart of zombie stories: the loss of free will.From the origin of the zombie, free will has been a key component, and parasites pose a direct and demonstrable threat to that free will.
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The original zombies from Haitian lore were reanimated by evil Bokor priests for slavery in the afterlife. But viruses don’t have a real motivator behind them. The virus doesn’t always have an easily understood motivation, beyond perpetuation. Parasites, at least, provide us with a living antagonist and a clear goal: survival.Which brings us to the all important question: How do we kill them?Well, the brain is probably still your best bet, considering that many of these zombifying parasites rely on manipulating brain chemistry. But you’re going to have to be thorough. IRL, taking out the brain is going to take out the host and you’d be good to go.
Unless, of course, the parasite manages to survive and refocus its attack. But that’s another can of worms. If we’re abiding by zombie theory, things may get a little complex. In zombies, we’re dealing with the undead — which means that while our zombies are moving and ostensibly “thinking” on some level, they’re not alive.
![Irl Irl](/uploads/1/2/5/6/125609584/223147032.jpg)
This is where the undead stuff gets a little wacky. Brains need oxygen to perform, which means that our bodies need a means to get oxygen to the brain. While we’re alive, our blood does the job. But the oxygen starts with breathing – and zombies don’t breathe.So, zombie brains function differently. We can make the assumption that in virus zombie lore, something in the virus changes the way the entire body operates (like a parasite!), and that includes the brain.
Given what we know about zombies, it’s safe to say that zombie brains don’t need oxygen, and zombies still need brains.When we replace the sort of parasite-like virus with a parasite proper, we come across some of the same problems. If we’re talking about the undead, we need to change the way that the brain operates on a fundamental level. Giving zombie lore the one-time exemption just like we do superheroes with powers that we can’t really explain, that means that we’re dealing with a different beast and that when were talking parasites, we might have to get a little more targeted. A number of these parasitic zombifying creatures rely on specific parts of the brain and its chemistry. If we consider for a moment that zombie brains aren’t always an all-or-nothing affair (that is, sometimes you shoot them but you only get, say, part of the frontal lobe), you may find yourself with a walker that keeps on walking until you take out the basal ganglia — the part of the brain that controls movement.Zombie lore is all hypothetical, but it’s worth considering how, exactly, one might contend with walkers that are animated not by a virus, but by a foreign species taking control of the body’s behaviors and functions.
It also has us thinking about a fundamental shift in the way we look at zombies.
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'Given the dynamics of the disease, once the zombies invade more sparsely populated areas, the whole outbreak slows down - there are fewer humans to bite, so you start creating zombies at a slower rate,' lead author Alex Alemi said in a.In their model, cities - predictably - fall fast. Just imagine a zombie attack on a crowded New York City subway. Horrifying, right? But their modelling shows it would take weeks for the outbreak to reach rural communities, and months to reach the northern mountain time zone.Of course, if movies have taught us anything, not all zombies. Depending on how freakishly fast they are, or how well they can climb, you may need to revise your estimates.As they explained in a when the study was first published, 'the project was an overview of modern epidemiology modeling, starting with differential equations to model a fully connected population, then moving on to lattice-based models, and ending with a full US-scale simulation of an outbreak across the continental US.' The simulation had to account for a population of roughly 300 million people, with each person presumed to be in one of four states: human, infected, zombie, and dead zombie.It tracked the spread of the epidemic by modelling the random interactions between these people - for instance, zombie bites leading to infection, and humans killing zombies, delaying the spread.
In the end the researchers were able to pinpoint locations where the disease would take longest to reach.Even with optimal hideouts, however, the outlook for Americans is pretty bad, should a zombie plague actually materialise.' Discover that for 'realistic' parameters, we are largely doomed,' the authors.It may seem a bit silly to simulate a zombie outbreak, but the and the have both used zombie outbreak-scenarios to help develop training programs for disaster readiness.And, you know, as a contingency plan for when it actually happens.A version of this article was originally published in 2015.
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