Zombies are a popular theme in movies and TV series, evident in the successes of "The Walking Dead" and the "The Last of Us" franchises. But is there a chance that those things you watch on TV will become a reality? Read to know the possibilities of finding yourself running for your life in a zombie apocalypse.
Could a Zombie Apocalypse Happen?
Some people believe that a zombie apocalypse could happen. According to New York Post, there is no proof that it could happen, but anything can happen.
The outlet also noted that some diseases mimic the trait of zombies, like rabies and leprosy, which suggests that it's possible to have "zombie" variants on our hands.
The rapid spread of COVID-19 also raises concerns about how fast a zombie virus could spread to create an apocalypse.
In movies and TV shows, zombies bite people and turn the victims into being one of them. In that case, the spread would be much easier to contain than a mutant virus.
Several experts also assured the public that a zombie apocalypse is unlikely to happen. According to Amy Chai, MD, Internal Medicine, MS, Epidemiology, a teenage boy asked her about zombies for fear that the premise of the game backstory he played on would come true.
Chai said zombies do not exist. They are fictional, like werewolves and vampires, so one should not worry about a zombie apocalypse.
Marc Lawrence, an author, said there is zero possibility of a zombie apocalypse due to necrosis. Corpses would rot away within a few weeks, if not sooner.
He added that with zombies' lack of higher brain functions, one could easily outsmart them. Also, even if the brain comes back to life, as portrayed in "The Walking Dead," it cannot change the other parts of the body because dead muscles cannot contract, so movement is impossible.
Dr. Steven Schlozman, a zombie enthusiast and professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, also said that a zombie apocalypse should be on our list of worries because we are human. We have plenty of things to do with ourselves without zombies, according to Harvard Health Publishing.
Can Scientists Create Zombies?
Schlozman touched on the topic in his 2011 book "The Zombie Autopsies." He imagined a world where a normal human turns into a zombie.
In the novel, warped scientists attach a prior to an airborne, influenza-like virus that results in a few sneezes and coughs before turning one into a full-on zombie pandemic.
He calls the condition an ataxic neurodegenerative satiety deficiency syndrome (ANSD), where one suffers from brain erosion, stumbles when walking and has an insatiable hunger. The prion destroys most of the brain but leaves enough working tissues to let the humans-turned-zombies walk. It also affects the hypothalamus-the part of the brain that regulates feelings of hunger, which explains their cravings for flesh.
However, zombies stumble into whatever they can and bite. Apparently, they are not as scary as portrayed in the movies.
Rachel Anderson also doesn't think that a mad scientist can create zombies. According to her, actual zombies - the West African zonbi and the Haitian zombi - have ethnosocial, pharmacological, and opportunistic etiology. They are zombified through intense religious belief or psychoactive agents like a pufferfish venom or a voodoo priest.
Anderson added that she's familiar with the kind of protocols research scientists work, and it's very unlikely that a scientist will go mad and release a bioweapon that will turn humans into a zombie.
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