Are zombies possible in real-life? - eviltoast
  • neidu2@feddit.nl
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    61
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    10 months ago

    Of the type often seen in movies where the body is rotten, no. Dead tissue doesn’t move.

    However, there are approximations:

    For starters there’s a type of fungus that hijacks ants, using it to spread its spores into other ants. It can control the ants movement to the point where it will cause the and to go to certain good spore-spread8ng places before the ant is devoured.

    Then there’s the disease that affects raindeer in some places. I don’t remember the illness, but basically the mind goes byebye while the body is left to be controlled by less and less sophisticated parts of the brain, to the point where the animal can do nothing but walk in circles.

      • TheColonel@reddthat.com
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        17
        ·
        10 months ago

        I’ve heard concern of it becoming a pandemic in deer populations and also scientists are worried it’ll spread to people!

        Yaaaaaaaaay. 🫠

          • TexasDrunk@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            7
            ·
            10 months ago

            It’s wild. Even after a deer with it dies it can remain in the soil for a couple of years. Burning and chemicals doesn’t affect it. The prion is just there, hanging out, waiting in the soil and water until another deer comes along and gets it doing normal deer things.

    • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      24
      ·
      10 months ago

      I mean, those fungi are crazy.

      But my money is either on a rabies or toxoplasmosis mutation for the zombie apocalypse.

      They wouldn’t be the living dead, and I dont think there’d be anything to stop them from attacking each other, but that’s be pretty close to zombies.

      Just feral humans without higher brain function trying to attack and eat anything they can.

    • umbrella@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      edit-2
      10 months ago

      imagine being a spore and becoming conscious inside an ant, with an animal’s brain.