Want to laugh?

[Geophyrd]

Cracked.com 's 5 Scientific Reasons A Zombie Apocalypse Could Actually Happen. God bless Cracked.

[bassman]

Great article, man. I like how their ranking system is composed only of pictures from Romero's films.

[SymphonicX]

one of them is from Shaun isn't it? actually it defintely is, the one at the top with the yellow hat guy...he was in Spaced..

[bassman]

one of them is from Shaun isn't it? actually it defintely is, the one at the top with the yellow hat guy...he was in Spaced.. Yeah, I know. I'm actually talking about their color-coded alert system that's at the bottom of each page. There's all kinds of photos in the article, though. Day, ROTLD, Land, 28 Days, 28 Weeks, etc etc..

[Legion2213]

I love that site! Always something worth reading on there.

[blind2d]

Okay, now I'm worried.... Especially about those rat parasites. Could this be another installment of the bubonic plague, or something far worse?

[ZombiePrototype]

It looks like we should start making plans to prepare ourselves for the coming Zombie Apocalypse.

[blind2d]

Indeed.

[clanglee]

funny article but that parasite actually is quite scary, check out this video. and this one is pretty disturbing as well (read the description of the video)

[Mike70]

great link. loads of fun but i am never going to look at my cats in the same way again. oh and clang those two vids you posted have my creepy-sheyat-o-meter pegging out far into the red.

[bd2999]

Although the parasite thing is interesting and creepy, as someone who studies eukaryotic pathogens (fungi and some parasites), its not likely that these will ever cause any sort of human zombie apocalypse or anything else. Much of the time the brain rewiring is in the secondary host and the primary host (the bird in the one example) is basicly normal until it dies of the parasite infection in most cases. Many of these sorts of parasites can accidentally infect humans if they happen to eat an uncooked infected thing (and in some cases if you walk barefoot the small worms burrow through your skin) and can cause severe illness and can lead to a very painful deal or no symptoms at all. Parasites are not my speciality though so I would have difficulty saying what type does what but I remember hearing about them. There are also species of ameoba that will enter a persons nose and then the brain and basicly eat it, and unless treated cause death. I could see a person being driven mad by something like that before they die. Really an offshoot of hte rabies virus is the best bet for driving people crazy. Spread by bites, and if it was altered to allow a longer infection time before burning out the host and killing it I could see one of them causing a "zombie outbreak" al la 28 Days later. Obviously it would not be like instant but after you were bit or something after a few days you likely would turn. There is a rabies vaccine though. However, this would take considerable mutation and changei n the virus from how it is now. To be honest I think most people would be shocked to see how many disease causing agents end up in the brain in the worst cases. And maybe some shifting of their modes of action could cause a loss of all upper brain function and that could lead to zombie like beings or something like that. Overall very unlikely though. Although it would not shock me if a government had not tried it already with rabies. The neurotoxin thing could potentially work so long as it did not just kill everyone outright. I guess some sort of nural poisions could do it, but I have no idea and to be honest that scares me. The real Rage virus thing is exagerated a bit much. Even removing serotonin leads a person to extremes in aggression and such but at the same time I am not sure its the extreme violence we saw in 28 Days later and it would take alot for it to be spread as such. I do believe that many people who would be considered psycho killers have low levels of it that can lead to fits of rage and uncaring. I think that has been demonstrated already. To be honest prion research (the proteins that are supposed to cause mad cow) are poorly understood though so its not out of the question). Its a fun article though. It would not suprise me if a few governments around the world have not already looked into crap like this. In theory you just let the country or city tare itself apart like this. Its brutal and barbaric and countries are not supposed to do it anymore, but we all know that they do. Very scary stuff here. Especially if part of your mind remains, you realize what you are doing but cannot stop yourself from doing it because your neural transmitters from that part of your brain are fried. Scary stuff.