5 ms·

For anyone who may want to know, prion diseases are sciencetific possible causes of a Zombie Apocalypse. That's why this new called my attention.

StavrosK 10y ago
By "zombie apocalypse", you mean slow-walking infected, craving brains and infecting anyone they bite? Or just, you know, a disease that kills you if you eat brains? Because that's kind of the exact opposite of what zombies do.
- dozzie 10y ago
  "Braaains... Eeat my braaains..."
- lxmorj 10y ago
  A prion that infected people rapidly, through saliva-to-blood contact, and had similar symptoms to rabies without the rapid death would be very similar to traditional zombie lore. The protein would probably also have to effect the olfactory glands, creating an attraction to uninfected humans.
carbocation 10y ago
It's hard to tell if you've been sincerely misled or if this is just a joke. Either way, though, it's not really plausible. The closest thing to a "zombie" that we get in nature are ants that are infected by Ophiocordyceps unilateralis. This fungus causes the infected ants to crawl to a fungus-friendly location on a leaf and remain there until the fungus kills it and produces more spores.
- hodwik 10y ago
  I think that Rabies was the inspiration for modern zombie stuff, actually.
  - maxerickson 10y ago
    In the I Am Legend novella (a big contributor to modern zombie), the infected are more like vampires and retain their intelligence. The book is notable for the primary theme it introduces, the otherness of the zombies (in earlier depictions they are largely undead plot devices) Romero's Night of the Living Dead also plays with the otherness theme, but the dead are numb and more ghoulish than vampiric. 28 Days Later finally has something I would agree is rabies inspired. It probably contributed to the frantic behavior of zombies in several recent movies.
    - hodwik2 10y ago
      I believe Rabies inspired vampires as well: from wsj "The roots of the vampire myth stretch back nearly as far. Tales of vampire-like creatures, formerly dead humans who return to suck the blood of the living, date to at least the Greeks, before rumors of their profusion in Eastern Europe drifted westward to capture the popular imagination during the 1700s. In its original imagining, though, the premodern vampire differed from today's in one crucial respect: His condition wasn't contagious. Vampires were the dead, returned to life; they could kill and did so with abandon. But their nocturnal depredations seldom served to create more of themselves. All that changed in mid-19th century England—at the very moment when contagion was first becoming understood and when public alarm about rabies was at its historical apex. Despite the fact that Britons were far more likely to die from murder (let alone cholera) than from rabies, tales of fatal cases filled the newspapers during the 1830s. This, too, was when the lurid sexual dimension of rabies infection came to the fore, as medical reports began to stress the hypersexual behavior of some end-stage rabies patients. Dubious veterinary thinkers spread a theory that dogs could acquire rabies spontaneously as a result of forced celibacy. Thus did rabies embody the two dark themes—fatal disease and carnal abandon—that underlay the burgeoning tradition of English horror tales. Britain's first popular vampire story was published in 1819 by John Polidori, formerly Lord Byron's personal physician. The sensation it caused was due largely to the fact that its vampire, a self-involved, aristocratic Lothario, distinctly resembled the author's erstwhile employer." "The Plague Behind the Zombies The undead didn't always breed by biting. For that, the mythmakers needed rabies." http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702303343404577518942892486750 http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB100014240527023033434045775189...
cududa 10y ago
And he Xmen are a rough template outlining the future of human evolution.
ajuc 10y ago
Real life zombies (if they worked like the ones in movies) would all starve in the first month. Imagine if lions eat a few kg of meat from an anteople, and then the rest of the antelope turned into another lion.
- Raphmedia 10y ago
  If zombies catch you and eat you, you're gone. If zombies catch you, bite you and you escape, you become a zombie. Generally it's not both at once.
- gus_massa 10y ago
  xkcd estimates that in a similar case humans would survive 32 months: https://what-if.xkcd.com/105/ https://what-if.xkcd.com/105/

StavrosK 10y ago

By "zombie apocalypse", you mean slow-walking infected, craving brains and infecting anyone they bite? Or just, you know, a disease that kills you if you eat brains? Because that's kind of the exact opposite of what zombies do.

dozzie 10y ago
"Braaains... Eeat my braaains..."
lxmorj 10y ago
A prion that infected people rapidly, through saliva-to-blood contact, and had similar symptoms to rabies without the rapid death would be very similar to traditional zombie lore. The protein would probably also have to effect the olfactory glands, creating an attraction to uninfected humans.

carbocation 10y ago

It's hard to tell if you've been sincerely misled or if this is just a joke. Either way, though, it's not really plausible. The closest thing to a "zombie" that we get in nature are ants that are infected by Ophiocordyceps unilateralis. This fungus causes the infected ants to crawl to a fungus-friendly location on a leaf and remain there until the fungus kills it and produces more spores.

hodwik 10y ago
I think that Rabies was the inspiration for modern zombie stuff, actually.
- maxerickson 10y ago
  In the I Am Legend novella (a big contributor to modern zombie), the infected are more like vampires and retain their intelligence. The book is notable for the primary theme it introduces, the otherness of the zombies (in earlier depictions they are largely undead plot devices) Romero's Night of the Living Dead also plays with the otherness theme, but the dead are numb and more ghoulish than vampiric. 28 Days Later finally has something I would agree is rabies inspired. It probably contributed to the frantic behavior of zombies in several recent movies.
  - hodwik2 10y ago
    I believe Rabies inspired vampires as well: from wsj "The roots of the vampire myth stretch back nearly as far. Tales of vampire-like creatures, formerly dead humans who return to suck the blood of the living, date to at least the Greeks, before rumors of their profusion in Eastern Europe drifted westward to capture the popular imagination during the 1700s. In its original imagining, though, the premodern vampire differed from today's in one crucial respect: His condition wasn't contagious. Vampires were the dead, returned to life; they could kill and did so with abandon. But their nocturnal depredations seldom served to create more of themselves. All that changed in mid-19th century England—at the very moment when contagion was first becoming understood and when public alarm about rabies was at its historical apex. Despite the fact that Britons were far more likely to die from murder (let alone cholera) than from rabies, tales of fatal cases filled the newspapers during the 1830s. This, too, was when the lurid sexual dimension of rabies infection came to the fore, as medical reports began to stress the hypersexual behavior of some end-stage rabies patients. Dubious veterinary thinkers spread a theory that dogs could acquire rabies spontaneously as a result of forced celibacy. Thus did rabies embody the two dark themes—fatal disease and carnal abandon—that underlay the burgeoning tradition of English horror tales. Britain's first popular vampire story was published in 1819 by John Polidori, formerly Lord Byron's personal physician. The sensation it caused was due largely to the fact that its vampire, a self-involved, aristocratic Lothario, distinctly resembled the author's erstwhile employer." "The Plague Behind the Zombies The undead didn't always breed by biting. For that, the mythmakers needed rabies." http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702303343404577518942892486750 http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB100014240527023033434045775189...

cududa 10y ago

And he Xmen are a rough template outlining the future of human evolution.

ajuc 10y ago

Real life zombies (if they worked like the ones in movies) would all starve in the first month. Imagine if lions eat a few kg of meat from an anteople, and then the rest of the antelope turned into another lion.

Raphmedia 10y ago
If zombies catch you and eat you, you're gone. If zombies catch you, bite you and you escape, you become a zombie. Generally it's not both at once.
gus_massa 10y ago
xkcd estimates that in a similar case humans would survive 32 months: https://what-if.xkcd.com/105/ https://what-if.xkcd.com/105/