Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Zombies (13 page)

In 2010, researchers from Osaka University in Japan accidentally discovered the gene sequence of the deadly borna virus buried inside the human genome. That means that every person on the planet is intimately connected to this virus in a way previously thought not possible.

Scientists have found upward of 100,000 elements of human
DNA that probably originated from viruses, but the borna virus belongs to a type that has never been found in the human genome before. Its discovery raises the possibility that many more viruses are still left unfound.

In some species, the borna virus is harmless, but it drives infected horses insane, causing them to commit suicide by smashing in their own skulls or starving themselves to death. It has also been linked to schizophrenia and bipolar disorder in humans.

Though the borna virus holds little promise of someday mutating into a zombie-causing agent, this new field of research brings up questions about where and how the undead threat will make itself known to an unprepared human race.

A prion is an infectious agent composed primarily of protein. It has been implicated in a number of deadly diseases in mammals, such as mad cow. All known prion diseases affect the structure of the brain, and all are untreatable and fatal.

Now a disturbing new strain of mad cow in humans, variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD), has proven to infect and kill younger people, cause much more gruesome symptoms, and be transmitted from person to person in new and deadly ways.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirms that vCJD is an invariably fatal brain disease, with an incubation period measured in years, and an unconventional transmissible agent. The new dangers of this strain are echoed by the United States National Institutes of Health:

It may be possible to transmit vCJD through blood and related blood products such as plasma. Some animal studies
suggest that contaminated blood may transmit the disease. Furthermore, scientists have no way of determining whether fluids are infectious or not.

The rapid evolution of the prion that causes vCJD has alarming implications for the study of zombieism. If vCJD becomes easily transmitted from one human to another through casual and/or sexual contact, like HIV, it could spell certain death to massive segments of the global population. Worse still would be an airborne prion disease driving people violently insane without the need for direct contact with the infected.

In January 2011, a study published in the journal
PLoS Pathogens
showed that not only can deadly prions be transmitted through blood, saliva, feces, and urine in mice but also through aerosols. This means that prion diseases have the potential to spread over vast distances like other airborne contagions.

In 2010, scientists at the Scripps Research Institute in Florida discovered that prions can develop large numbers of mutations. Through natural selection, these mutations can lead to evolutionary adaptations previously thought not possible. Charles Weissmanz, the head of the Scripps Department of Infectology and the study’s lead author, says:

It was previously thought that once cellular prion protein was converted into the abnormal form, there was no further change. But there have been hints that something was happening. Now we know that the abnormal prions replicate, and create variants.
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Though prions are technically lifeless, possessing no DNA or RNA, it turns out that they are still somehow able to evolve.
As they mutate in new and unforeseen ways, the likelihood increases that a prion-based zombie sickness will someday show its ugly head.

Researchers at the National Academy of Sciences have discovered a dangerous new trend in the evolution of the flu virus. By creating a hybrid virus that joined the deadly bird-flu strain with the more common human flu, they proved that not only is this union possible in nature, but it could also produce devastating results.

Bird and swine flu are extremely deadly, but in their current state, they don’t spread easily from person to person. By contrast, human influenza is highly contagious but isn’t usually potent enough to cause widespread death. When these two strains are combined, a new and virulent threat is born.

Asked about the possibility of different flu strains mixing, Hong Kong University virologist Yi Guan responded that if that happens, he will retire immediately and lock himself in a sealed laboratory, because it will likely mark the end of the world.
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Strong words from a normally stoic scientist.

Applied to the study of zombies, the notion that several
different strains of the same root virus can merge has profound implications. If zombieism is simply a highly mutated variation of rabies, mad cow, or even influenza, then this dormant strain has only to mix with its more common cousin to create an instant pandemic the likes of which the world has never seen.

Samita Andreansky, a virologist at the University of Miami’s Miller School of Medicine in Florida, claims that even pathogens that are not similarly rooted can be combined rather easily:

This is the age of microbiology. We can clone animals and humans in the lab, so we can certainly combine a highly virulent strain of rabies with a highly virulent strain of influenza.
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Combining the symptoms of rabies with the infectiousness of the flu virus could initiate a zombie plague that is faster-acting and more lethal than ever thought possible.

Rather than needing a bite to become infected, a single sneeze could create dozens more zombies-to-be. Hundreds of thousands of seemingly healthy people would be unknowingly doomed by their inadvertent exposure. The implications for the human race of an airborne zombie virus are devastating.

Along these lines, researchers at Stanford University are making fundamental changes to the DNA of a deadly parasite, and their work has all the hallmarks of a classic zombie-outbreak story.

Toxoplasma gondii
is a microscopic parasite that causes toxoplasmosis in humans and animals, which is the third leading cause of death from food-borne illness in the United States. Though often not fatal, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the parasite remains inactive in the host body, waiting for the ideal time to reactivate itself. An estimated 60 million men, women, and children in the United States carry the parasite without even knowing it.

Toxoplasmosis drastically changes the behavior of rats and mice, making them drawn to the scent of cats, rather than fearful of it. Once the rodent is killed and eaten by a cat, the controlling parasite can then reproduce in its new host.

In humans, mild cases of infection can result in reckless behavior, including higher levels of aggression, jealousy, and paranoia. It can also cause inflammation of the brain, neuro-logic diseases, and other highly targeted disorders.

Could genetically altering a deadly, mind-controlling parasite be the first step toward the evolution of zombieism? If so, with a legion of people across the planet already infected, the newly modified organism needs only to link up with millions of ready victims.

It’s generally believed that zombies can be safely dispatched with a little lighter fluid and a match. But what if the source of
the undead plague can’t be destroyed by fire? What if the sickness spreads even faster once ignited?

If we take as fact that zombieism is passed from one person to another through bodily fluids, then the sickness must exist on the microbial level. Microbes are single-cell organisms that live in the water you drink, the food you eat, and the air you breathe. Most microbes are helpful, but others have proven to be killers on a massive scale, including smallpox, flu, tuberculosis, malaria, plague, measles, and cholera.

Though most microbes can’t survive fire, extremophiles actually thrive in extreme conditions that would kill other life forms. It’s quite probable that the infectious agent in zombies is burned up right along with the body, but it seems possible that all or part of it could survive. An inhaled particle or an inadvertent rub of your eye, and you could be doomed to suffer a slow sickness, death, and reanimation without ever having come into direct contact with a zombie. So if you ever find yourself in a catastrophic zombie outbreak and a member of your group wants to torch the entire neighborhood, you might want to think twice about handing over the gas can. It could spell the beginning of the end for you, your loved ones, and everyone else for miles around.

If the zombie infection evolves from a known pathogen, could you be immune? Research done by the United States Air Force found that roughly 1 percent of the global population is incapable of contracting the HIV virus because of a genetic mutation. These mutated human cells have a slightly different structure from most, preventing the invading HIV cells from finding a suitable spot to attach themselves. Imagine plugging the wrong charger into your cell phone. No matter how hard you try, you’re never going to get a good connection. The port and the attachment just don’t fit.

The uncovered immunity to HIV and similar findings in leukemia and other cancers have had a profound influence on the way we look at disease and the future evolution of treatment strategies. Some experts go as far as to suggest that for every ailment, there is someone who is immune, and we just haven’t tracked them all down yet.

Could it be that not only is a certain small percentage of the population immune to becoming zombies but those people may also hold the key to developing a working vaccine that could help prevent new zombie infections from spreading?

Following this logic, in 2010, researchers at Rutgers University figured out how RNA viruses are able to replicate, a discovery that could eventually lead to cures for the diseases they cause. Study director Nihal Altan-Bonnet explained that these viruses, including polio, SARS, and HIV/AIDS, copy themselves by taking a naturally occurring enzyme hostage:

The goal of any virus is to replicate itself. For its replication machines to work, the virus needs to create an ideal lipid environment, which it does by hijacking a key enzyme from its host cell.
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By blocking a virus from gaining access to the necessary enzyme, these serious diseases would suddenly not be able to synthesize their viral RNA and replicate.

If the zombie plague is also viral in nature and if it uses the RNA platform, these findings could lead to the development of viable treatment options for the newly infected. Treated individuals could house the zombie sickness in their blood, could potentially be contagious, but would not ever get sick, die, or reanimate.