Zombies: fad or possibility?

Sonia Zimmermanl is a junior Journalism major. Her views do not necessarily represent those of the Advance-Titan.

The idea of zombies was originally thought to be just a fad, but this craze has already lasted several decades. The concept has evolved into motion pictures, games, zombie walks and clubs.

The idea of zombies seems far-fetched to many and is probably highly unlikely to occur, however there is some logic behind the theory. Not the violent, flesh-eating idea, but the altered behavior concept.

As we have seen in many movies, there are several different types of zombies, ranging from slow-moving cannibals trying to eat uninfected people (like in "Resident Evil") to the fast-moving, angry creatures infected with rage (like in "28 Days Later"). The inevitable factor is that these creatures, which were once human, are now unintelligent creatures attacking the few surviving humans.

Most of our popular culture portrayal of zombies comes from the stories of the living dead in Haiti.  The Haitians believed that bokor's sorcery (a type of black magic) created zombies by extracting a person's soul from his or her body, forcing the body to do the sorcerer's bidding, thereby creating a mindless zombie, unable to act of their own free will.

Most of us would like to think that the tragedies that happen in these stories and horror films could never happen in real life or if it did we would definitely survive it. An article written for Time magazine, "The Real Reasons Zombies Never Die" by Jeff Alexander reveals that there is something comforting to people about the end of the world.

We all assume we will be one of the survivors and all of our current problems, which seem so daunting today, are suddenly irrelevant. But unfortunately, if this was true and everyone survived there wouldn't be a zombie apocalypse.

There are quite a few people who have formed groups to help spread awareness and give advice on how to survive what they believe to be an inevitable zombie apocalypse.

Zombie Hunters is an organization that provides a zombie suppression task force and informational tips about how to prepare for a zombie outbreak. According to it's website, the group's main goal is to educate the public about the importance of personal preparedness and self-reliance, to increase its readiness to respond to disasters such as earthquakes, floods, terrorism or zombie outbreaks.

It works with representatives from the U.S. Center for Disease Control to be informed on any possible viruses or threats that could cause an outbreak.

Here on campus we have the Students and Teachers Against the Not-Quite Dead group. It is a club on campus that promotes physical fitness, charity, survival skills and how to be prepared for a zombie apocalypse. They have approximately 30 members and take this subject very seriously.

An article written for Cracked.com, "5 Scientific Reasons a Zombie Apocalypse Could Actually Happen" by David Wong, lays out the top five reasons why a zombie apocalypse could happen. Behavior altering brain parasites that have shown to change behavior in rats is one possible cause. This particular parasite has caused the rats to ignore instinctive life-saving behaviors.

Another possibility is neurotoxins, like the poison present in blowfish. These are said to alter human behavior and were already used to "create" zombies in Haiti (the non-aggressive, non-cannibalistic kind).

This chemical in the blowfish is poisonous to humans and causes behavior that can be comparable to the behavior of zombies in movies. It causes lethargic behavior, paralysis and can make an individual appear dead. Studies have shown that people or animals that have been poisoned and survived may have acted differently for a brief period of time, but eventually fully recover.

Other studies on several alleged zombies were discovered to be clear cases of mental illness and mistaken identity.

There are brain disorders that are occasionally present in human beings and could make a person behave differently, resembling a zombie. When mad cow disease infects a human it's called Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. When a person eats this infected meat it can cause changes in gait, hallucinations, lack of coordination, muscle twitching, seizures and delirium. Luckily, this isn't contagious between humans.

Also, neurogenesis, stem cell research, is said to be a possible cause. This research can create new brain cells and can possibly re-grow dead brain tissue.

But the top reason on the Cracked articles list was nanobots. These are microscopic, self-replicating robots. Research by James J. Hughes, Ph.D. shows that within a decade, nanobots will be created to crawl inside your brain and set up neural connections to replace damaged ones.

All of these suggest possible brain altering conditions, but the extreme cannibalistic zombies, not so much.

According to an article on How Stuff Works, a Discover site dedicated to finding scientific explanations for how things work, there hasn't been any scientific method to prove there has ever been or will be zombies.

Even though most of the possible causes of zombies have been debunked, it's always good to keep an open mind. This could be a fad or this could happen, no one can really predict the future, or can they? Happy Halloween.