can zombies actually exist?

[2733]

Now before I get into this, it has been a while since my last biology class, so if any of this is incorrect let me know and I will correct it.

I have come to the conclusion that the romero style zombie, that is the partially rotten corpse of a human resurrected by space radiation or a viral infection, that hungers for human flesh and can be killed only with significant brain damage, is impossible. Why? energy.

Like anything else, a muscle needs fuel to move, in humans this fuel is a combination of the glycogen found in muscle and oxygen and nutrition from the bloodstream, (there is more to it then that but that is sufficient for our needs). Zombies however have no heartbeat, and with that no method to transport oxygen and nutrition to the muscle that needs it for chasing tasty survivors. this leaves only the glycogen in the muscle, sadly(if I recall bio101) oxygen is needed to burn the glycogen for energy. But just to keep our favorite brain eaters in the race let's say they can burn it without oxygen. Now we have creatures that run purely on glycogen, however they won't last long, go chase some stereotypical survivor types for a few minutes, I can wait. (If you can't find people to chase just walk around your neighborhood) assuming you are an average sedentary job holding adult, you are now a bit tired and chances are you have already burned all the glycogen in your legs.

So what do we have left? To keep them moving long enough (if at all) to pose a threat we now have zombies that breathe and have a heartbeat, which isn't much of a zombie at all. Now we run into another problem, remember that nasty bite that turned him into a zombie? well now that he has a heartbeat he will keep bleeding from the wound until he can no longer function from blood loss.

before anyone mentions, yes I know that some zombies are raised via magic, but that is not what I'm talking about.

Did I miss anything, or are our zombie apocalypse plans all for not? Your thoughts.

 

[Lilani]

Well they CAN exist, if and only if things COULD work as you said they should. But they don't, so no. In our reality they cannot.

Now, robot zombies...that's a different story entirely.

 

[Kragg]

why do people ask questions than give the answer ...

yes those kind of zombies are impossible, the "rabies" type zombies are plausible

 

[Amphoteric]

Errr, I don't know.


Apparently Zombies exist in Haiti

 

[Mediteral]

There is also the "Infected" kind of zombie that aren't necessarily dead, just have the RAGE virus, like those that appear in 28 days later.

 

[Zuljeet]

As long as there is Rum, WoW, and Pr0n, there will always be a legion of zombies shambling across teh interwebs.

 

[Dogstile]

Depends on the type of zombie dude. Also, why would being a zombie stop the healing process? I always thought that was silly.

 

[Popadoo]

Some think as zombies not as undead, but as people who -after being infected with some kind of virus- loose function in certain parts of their brain that effects;

A) Complex thought processing, you are reverted to natural instincts (run after food, eat, repeat).
B) Perception, you see other humans as a food source.

This would make sense, but since they are as fit, or UNFIT, as anyone else and extremely stupid they could be easily out-matched.

 

[uzo]

Duh ... Dead dudes don't dance.


Viral/parasitic 'zombifying' organisms and so on exist in the animal kingdom, however, and frankly if something exists with one species it's perfectly possible for it to make the species-jump and migrate to a different host.

Frankly, I find the idea of a zombie apocalypse at the hands of a viral/parasitic cause downright plausible - if highly unlikely, of course.


Let me put it this way - we are liable to (one day, eventually) be hit by an unprecedented disaster causing incredible devastation a la Deep Impact/Armageddon/Day After Tomorrow, but we are unlikely to experience a Mayan prophecy coming true and wiping out 99% of the world's population a la 2012.

If you take that into account and apply zombies, 'Deep Impact' is a parasitic outbreak - extremely unlikely yet scientifically plausible. '2012' is Romero's dead `uns - scientifically impossible.

 

[Saltyk]

Hasn't Cracked done a few articles on this? I remember one about Ways a Zombie Apocalypse Could Happen and one about Ways a Zombie Apocalypse Would be Doomed to Failure. So you have that.

Actually, here's the links.
http://www.cracked.com/article_15643_5-scientific-reasons-zombie-apocalypse-could-actually-happen.html
http://www.cracked.com/article_18683_7-scientific-reasons-zombie-outbreak-would-fail-quickly.html

 

[Jason Danger Keyes]

The Romero zombies were raised by magic, so they don't count. The 28 Days Later zombies are viral, so they's still technically alive. The Resident Evil Zombies (except in 4 and 5, where they're controlled by parasites) are dead, and not raised by magic, so those ones are impossible.

 

[mega48man]

a real living dead zombie that wants nothing other than to eat your brains, luckily, no. it's physically impossible, it would defy all laws biology, physics, reality, etc. a corpse cannot be reanimated once dead without electricity and everything else from frankenstien.

however, there a ton of way to FAKE zombies. hire actors is the easiest, or you can create animatronic robots to give a real look of missing limbs, you could create holograms if you've got the technology from decades from now, you could also did up corpses and put them on puppet strings if you want the real smell of an undead corpse (or if you're really fucked up), etc etc, imagination

 

[TheDist]

If you have ever had to dress the deceased you see why the classic zombie busting out of it's grave is just never gonna happen, trust me.

Now, lets talk parasitic organisms. A parasitic organism, in my opinion, is the most likely way you could have a "zombie" or at least as close as possible to one. Indeed I belive this happens with insects currently, via certain types of fungi.

Granted this would be hard to do on a human, would take a lot to keep a body living, but not out of the realms of possibility. Though I wouldn't expect it to be more than a case of keeping the basic body functions going, not so much the brain eating stuff.

 

[Blaze the Dragon]

Yeah the disease kind that causes rage and interpretations of any living thing as food is the most likely to be actually possible in the real world, but the problem is that I don't think a true apocalypse is possible if it behaves like it does in the movies. As in it only transfers through direct contact like through bites and such. Plus, how come the zombies wouldn't just eat each other, I mean they still look human, and they're clearly moving around, so they must appear to be food. The other major flaw is that I don't see how it can actually spread if they eat their victims. That means only the people who got caught, then got away and later succumbed to the virus would turn into zombies after the initial batch.

However, if we also added the fact that the virus could most likely spread outside of direct contact, then we'd be in trouble. For instance if it spread through normal touch, like simply brushing a zombie infected you, or coming in contact with it's blood in any way, then it would certainly spread like a virus much quicker and in a much more "world-threatening" way. Otherwise we'd just shoot like 5 people and apocalypse over, since everyone knows how to deal with zombies at this point.

Then we could throw in the possibility of the victims retaining some key skills related to survival they might know, like how to use basic weapons. Imagine if redneck zombies could remember how to use guns or at least blunt instruments, then we might have a movie-class problem on our hands.

To recap:
1) The virus would need to be able to be spread in more ways than just bites, like through basic contact or other ways viruses normally spread.
2) The zombies would need to be reduced to basic instincts, while still retaining some cleverness in order to actually be a threat.
3) The zombies need to not kill each other for some reason, or it would never spread outside of a single neighborhood.

However, all you would have to do is bunker down in your house, a mall, or an actual bunker, for at most like 2 months. If the zombies are successful to the point that they outnumber their food source, basic logic would dictate they'd start dying off pretty quickly from hunger now they they don't have nearly enough food to go around. Unless they retain enough intelligence to be able to break into a house, you can probably just stock up on food and wait for it to blow over. Maybe just set up a trap or 2 and have an alarm system set up early on.

 

[trebthegamer]

if the zombie plauge is caused by a virus we'd have to know how this virus works or know what it's made off. keeping headshot zombies (cus i've seen times when headshot's meant just as much as nothing) then we can suppose this virus originates in an active brain where it could set up its own (let's say)tumor we can assume this could be seen as a nest this is where it quickly feeds off the victem's crutial parts of the brain(energy,blood? idk) and multiplies. at firts it would cause the brainfunctions to halt causing the victem to die. then it would start multiplying towards the rest of the body feeding(and multiplying) of the now halted fuel(possably) the neutritions. once it has done this it might replace the glycogen with itself. a virus is kinda like a human and will spread by any means. this might be where the actual zombification kicks in an reanimates the body to spread itself.
i'm not big on biology so if you notice any problematic details. good for you.

 

[Hawk eye1466]

You could have the one's from zombie land which are people infected with a version of mad cow disease which fucked up their brains

 

[Jacob Haggarty]

Ressurected zombies? No...

Viral "zombies" (see 28 days)? Probably.

Interesting how you say "space radiation"... which is to say "a bit retarded".

But i do like your point about how a zombie would function movement wise. Its not neccessarily impossible to burn glycogen without oxygen, i think it's known as anaerobic respiration, in fact i think we can do it as humans. The only problem is, it's not sustainable, as it builds up lactic acid, which also needs oxygen to deplete it. So, you COULD have zombies that move anearobically, it's just they would be shit.

It might be possible to induce contractions of the heart and lungs using electrical signals. Think pacemaker, but hooked up to the diaphragm and intercostal muscles as well as the heart (get me, being a smart-arse with my fancy biological terminology). Again, possibly feasable, but overly complicated and probably expensive. Also, it's stupid: who would WANT to make zombies? Don't answer that.

Over all, i reckon a viral or bacterial infection is the way to go. Sure they aren't REALLY zombies, but they're the closest you're going to get.

 

[Saltyk]

Ressurected zombies? No...

Viral "zombies" (see 28 days)? Probably.

Interesting how you say "space radiation"... which is to say "a bit retarded".

But i do like your point about how a zombie would function movement wise. Its not neccessarily impossible to burn glycogen without oxygen, i think it's known as anaerobic respiration, in fact i think we can do it as humans. The only problem is, it's not sustainable, as it builds up lactic acid, which also needs oxygen to deplete it. So, you COULD have zombies that move anearobically, it's just they would be shit.

It might be possible to induce contractions of the heart and lungs using electrical signals. Think pacemaker, but hooked up to the diaphragm and intercostal muscles as well as the heart (get me, being a smart-arse with my fancy biological terminology). Again, possibly feasable, but overly complicated and probably expensive. Also, it's stupid: who would WANT to make zombies? Don't answer that.

Over all, i reckon a viral or bacterial infection is the way to go. Sure they aren't REALLY zombies, but they're the closest you're going to get.

Who would want to make zombies? Super-villains! Think a relatively cheap workforce and tireless defense force that is too stupid to complain or attempt to overthrow you. Yeah, definitely a super-villain thing.

 

[MASTACHIEFPWN]

The Romero zombie is impossible, but other zombies...

For instance, the Left 4 Dead standard horde style is possible, seeing as how they are infected with a mutated version of the rabies virus, but they would likely die a day or 2 after being infected, lack of sleep, destroyed imune system, no food, no water ect.