will zombies ever be for real

[Absit]

Yes. Maybe not Romero's zombies, or Resident Evil's zombies. But 28 Days Later's zombies. Looking at that movie, how unrealistic are the zombies? A blood and saliva borne pathogen that makes the infected being lose their self control, pain, and fear, and leaves them with nothing but the urge to eat, anything. Wait..that's Rabies. How long do you think it'll be before someone in a terrorist (or non) country realizes how powerful it would be to drop this on some island (North America, England, Australia, Africa, etc) and watch it destroy itself?

[gordon_freeman]

Rabies did not spread in seconds though, and though the 28 days later undead were a bit more realistic, they also just starved to death.

I'm 99.99~% certain in the fact zombies won't be a problem for our society, just as i'm 99.99~% sure that the law of gravity will apply. But as you learn in science, nothing is ever for certain. If/when zombies start showing up i'll be like "thank god i found the zombie forums" and bust out all the weapons and survival gear, sweet!

[Gunny]

As far as the dead rising for religious reasons, I'm uncertain.

On the other hand, I do believe that we're only a few years away from a world altering outbreak of somekind, be that what it may.

[FordGuy2001]

I doubt that the living dead will ever walk the earth and feast on the flesh of live humans. As fun as it is in the movies and such, it just aint gonna happen. I do beleive though that in the PAW we will have to deal with massive contamination of some sort that may cause people to act in ways that could be classified as "zombie" like. We may be defending ourselves from live people looking for something to eat. Does the plane crash in the Andes ring a bell?

[kyle]

Everyone, let's please keep the religion bashing and preaching off this forum.

Everyone, no matter what their faith based beliefs are, are very welcome here but we don't need the debate. It's an inappropriate and unproductive debate in relation to the subject matter of this forum. Take it to a PM if you must.

By the way, adding a disclaimer stating that you're not discussing religion doesn't negate the fact that you're preaching religion.

[Tomcat1066]

By the way, adding a disclaimer stating that you're not discussing religion doesn't negate the fact that you're preaching religion.

How about a disclaimer disclaiming that I'm disclaiming anything?

Tom

[Resident]

Coming from a biology and anatomy/physiology background, I will, with greater than 103% certainty, assert that an occult/magical/whatever explanation is the ONLY way an actual DEAD zombie would be possible, because in order for a body to move and propel *itself* requires biochemically viable (a.k.a. living) tissues and organs. Zombies a la 28DL or The Crazies (remember The Crazies?) were never undead in those flicks, they were living people whose brains were turned to swiss cheese and went nuts; THAT I could see happen. But once actual death has set in, those biochemical changes in the cell membranes are irreversible. No sodium pump, no ion transport, no ATP...means no nerve conduction, no breathing, no muscle contraction, nothing. If Mr Stinky's gonna get up and boogie, it would have to be because something's pulling the strings. I understand this group charter prefers the "science based" zombie over the black magic variety, but come on...pseudoscience and pseudomysticism are just two flavors of bullshit. That being said...whatever caused him, the mutherfucker shambles at me, I'm blowing his head off.

"Voodoo...virus...I'm the guy with the gun.".............BOOM!!!!

Rz

[groovydave1]

Any good scientist should admit that there are no absolutes, only our current understanding of the subject matter at hand. Yes, no force of which we know could cause dead tissue to reanimate and move of its own accord. That is true. 100 years ago no force that anyone knew of could cause an explosion that would level a city. No machine that anyone could imagine could communicate with someone on the other side of the planet without wires. No disease that anyone knew of could destroy the bodies ability to defend itself from infection AND mutate as it travels from host to host, making it similar, but not exactly the same, in each person.
My point is simply that, yes, the circumstances needed to conceive of true walking dead are practically unimaginable, but it would be the height of scientific arrogance to think that we know all there is to know about biology. Better to be safe than sorry. Keep an open mind and you'll always have an escape route. Close that door and you are doomed.

Groovydave

[Resident]

This may all come down to semantics or an argument over death timelines, but the biochemical mechanisms of membrane transport are irreparably damaged once a certain amount of time passes, and, unromantic as it sounds, membrane transport is the very foundation of what we call life. Now, if a person's heart stops beating for a minute or even two, and he/she is revived, then you could call that zombification if you like but that was never biological death. The movie concept of a CORPSE...not breathing, no heartbeat, cold...moving around isnt a matter of "we don't know enough biology yet", it's folklore. The period of human history youre talking about is before anyone knew what viruses were, how a muscle contracted, or how nerve impulses were transmitted. In the age of electron tunneling microscopes, certain concepts are just disproven. But once again...a disease that stops your clock for a minute and lets you wake up brain damaged and homicidal...I'm not gonna deny the possibility of that for a second.

[groovydave1]

because obviously this is your field of study and you believe wholeheartedly in the superiority of your understanding. Even in our current times of knowledge about cellular structure and biochemical processes, odd things are acheived by scientists working on a deeper understanding of these things. No doubt you have seen the video of the dead, headless flies, buzzing about in their dish, animated by nothing more than a flash from a laser? Of course a human isn't a fly, but it made me wonder.
We're not going to agree, so there is not much point in debating this. I'm only saying we are learning new things every day, and one if those new things may result in zombies. Like everyone here, I just want to be prepared for that possibility.

Groovydave

[Boneman]

i agree with one of the other guys who posted, zombies are possible but they woudnt actually be dead, just hyperagreesive and imune to pain and stuff. I do hope they shamble though. Theyre much more fun than sprinting zombies.

[g3shooter]

Yes, very soon the Solanum Virus will rise!

[Harbinger of Retribution]

The odds of the dead coming back to life from a viral weapons standpoinht is extraordinarily low. The odds of some sort of 28 days later infection raising hell and making people go crazy- those odds are considerably higher. And not to bring up any kind of religious debate out of respect for Kyle's decree, the only pheasable way I could see the dead coming back to life is in a "wrath of god" type zombie thing, in which case we're all pretty much boned.

It's too bad really, a real life Resident Evil style zombie outbreak would definitely be interesting to say the absolute least. Helluva story at cocktail parties...

-Harbinger

[Ironsides]

i cant say something wont happen for sure but i think there is slim to non chance that this will happen but my thinking is if you get ready to handle zombies you can handle anything

[scfb]

even if zombies are a 1 in 1,000,000,000 chance wouldn't you rather be safe than sorry. i mean the lottery has pretty crazy odds and people still win

[Spiffums]

I think we all have fear of Zombies rising. This is why movies get made and make money. I really don't think it would take much to set off a plague like in the start of The Stand with an ending like I Am Legend. There are so many different research programs that could mutate. Full on Zeds........... highly doubtful........ Ragers or whatever was in Will Smith's I am Legend possible

[wee drop o' bush]

I think we all have fear of Zombies rising. This is why movies get made and make money. I really don't think it would take much to set off a plague like in the start of The Stand with an ending like I Am Legend. There are so many different research programs that could mutate. Full on Zeds........... highly doubtful........ Ragers or whatever was in Will Smith's I am Legend possible

I've often thought so too

[AUA]

From a purely scientific perspective, I cannot see zombies in the Romero sense ever existing beyond means that defy the natural laws of physics, and the known observations of biological processes (not only would it be peculiar that the organism would sacrifice all else for food consumption, but that they would be so selective as to their food source to make themselves a threat to humanity; not only that they would come back from the dead, but that they would stay alive, indefinitely, violating the second law of thermodynamics, or that they would defy the conventional laws of chemistry, with their conventional biological configuration).

I could see Rage-type 'zombies' existing, but the likelihood is so little that such a possibility isn't statistically significant, given all of the little bits that go into making someone brain-damaged to the point of indiscriminate homicide, without killing them outright.

You wouldn't just stumble upon this sort of thing; you'd have to engineer a virus/pathogen that could damage very specific portions of the brain (and nothing else) and then stop dead, before further damage affected your host. We don't understand which regions need to be damaged (separately, in concert, or in tandem) to create such a host, nor what elements to exploit within a specific type of host to allow the pathogen to self-terminate, and frankly, I don't understand why such anyone would purposefully design that sort of thing.

Such a biological weapon would meet the requirements for MAD, even without a second party involved, because not only would you obliterate the opposing faction, but the weapon would indiscriminately wipe the entire human race off the face of the planet in exponentially more successful waves, your faction included. It's like building a perfectly protected and distributed silo network, and then leaving a bunch of nuclear warhead stockpiles in every town and city of your country. Not only would every man, woman, and child be a potential threat in their faction, but unless you can perfectly quarantine your nation (unlikely) and have material/production facilities to produce every single material necessary to continue living after the rest of the world (unlikely), every man, woman, and child in your own nation/faction would also be a threat.

This is all on top of the decades of research, countless scientists, and hundreds of millions of dollars necessary to even create the weapon.

In other words, I don't see it happening.

[NoAm]

Honestly, Mr. NoAm and I have always enjoyed 'Zombie Movies"
Do we think we will ever be dealing with true Zombies? Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm, probably not.

However, Mr. NoAm has said for years "When the Zombies come....................."
I think that Zombies can and WILL come in many different way.
Economic Collapse
Food Shortages/Rising Prices
Civil Unrest
Natural Disasters
Some or All of the above could be someones Zombie.

Our current personal zombie has been unemployment. We have been prepping for years though and will be just fine.
I think the True Question is, what will be your Zombie?

[thewingchun]

I look at zombies as a metaphor. Based on this Zombie attacks are already happening. Flash Mobs. Groups of unthinking humanoids coming from seemingly nowhere attacking and taking whatever they want with out any concern for the harm or destruction they cause.

Only difference I see with real zombies. Zombies can be shot in the head in Chicago and the police will not arrest the shooter for possession of a firearm.

[Scotticus]

I think the answer to the OP question is based in definition. While there is biological precedent for biological parasitic agents that can assume control of or animate a host, there exists nowhere in known biology that this occurs with hosts more evolved than insects.

Thus, the probability of undead-type zombies driven by a virus in their brains, is highly unlikely.

You may also enjoy my post at zocom.org that deals specifically with why undead-type zombies (those with no pulse) create a contradiction that could not possibly survive more than a few hours at the very, very most.

Viral zombies, however, are far more likely. A 28D-style viral infection that A) induces aggressive, reckless behavior and B) introduces behavior modifications counter-productive to the host's natural survival instincts are possible. The example I like to point to is one that's familiar for most anyone: rabies.

Think about it. Rabies is a viral infection that attacks host nervous tissue. It's transmitted a number of ways, most commonly through saliva of the infected to bite victims. It results in erratic, hostile behavior and heightened aggression. Curiously, it also makes the host afraid of f'n water of all things -- a vital element for the host's survival.

There's a fungus that can infect rats which also drives them a little nuts, and makes them attracted to cat urine. The obvious problem is that cats tend to eat rats, and so the attraction to cat urine is clearly a behavioral modification as a result of infection that goes against the host's natural survival behavior.

Rabies is human-communicable, as are a host of other neuropathogens that introduce odd behavioral modifications. Is it possible, and reasonably plausible, that a mutated virus, bacterium, or fungus could spread in pandemic fashion with more severe behavioral side effects?

Yes, I do believe so. How likely is it?? Probably much less likely than Obama getting re-elected, and that scares me WAY more.

[DevilDogZombieSlayer]

Ok, I figure I will through my .02 in this...

I would like to think of zombies (or infected) as more of a threat to national security than anything else. I believe that we can rule out any type of "dead walking the earth" mumbojumbo. That is by popular consensus highly unlikely. Now let get into my bit of national security; there are a couple of scenarios that could happen. The first one being an actual boots on ground attack, as in some red dawn action, this one is not impossible but highly unlikely. Due to the fact of the improved technology that we have in today’s society we would see a group of plane and or ships heading for our coasts and deal with them accordingly. Once again I'm not saying that this is impossible but I'm narrowing down the list to the most possible occurrence.

Now we can get into the NBC *Nuclear, Biological, Chemical* portion of it:

Nuclear: In the event that one country releases its bombs, the theory is that every other country would realize there’s and we would all be one big glow in the dark sand box. I don’t see this happening, however it could. In the event this occurred it would more than likely not matter with a combination of the blast radius and the fall out we would all be dead in a matter of weeks-months.

Chemical: This one is higher on the list then both troops entering our country, or the nuclear part. This is a semi-effective approach but it has one flaw or down side. The chemical attack is limited to the region that it is dropped/released in. For instance if someone were to leave a chemical agent in time square it would do nothing to people in Dallas Tx. The trough of someone placing multiple chemical agents throughout the states to effectively diminish or kill off the population would be extremely redundant and unintelligent.

Biological: This in my opinion is the number one most effective way to carry out a strike. There a couple ways that someone could carry out this plan or attack, for instance they could drop a biological agent in a large airport. Let’s say that 10% of JFK airport get infected, then they board their flights and go to which ever part of the country that they are heading to. Once at a new destination they then infect people at that airport. The infection rate would multiply significantly in a matter of hours. Now they would have to engineer the agent to have an incubation period because if people started getting sick insistently air ports would shut down and the plan would either be partly stopped or ended completely.

To go further into the set up of the biological agent it would more than likely have to start as a airborne then move to a fluid base transmission. If it was standard airborne it would either be less effective or to effective, as in the potential to cause a pandemic vice a epidemic.

This is just my opinion and I might be wrong, but this could happen. If you don’t prepare for this event, or one like it you could become just another casualty.

[Reaver]

I've read about 2/3 of this forum and the main thing being discussed is the "un-dead" aspect of a zombie in question,
Well i thought I'd post this
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/05/110511-zombies-ants-fungus-infection-spores-bite-noon-animals-science/
It's a natural geographic article about an invasive- nervous system- jacking fungus
what if this fungus went through rapid evolution or adaptations so that it was capable of infecting humans??

have fun with that one

[Electricity]

Sheesh, the only zombie I see is this necroed thread from 6 years ago..
Oh and Reaver, welcome to the forums, head on over to the intro's subforum and introduce yourself! Also, that article has been posted several times before.