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A man sits at a desk. His expression serious and composed, yet his eyes somehow hold a strange tint of fear. He shuffles his paper nervously and reads aloud the words given to him by his producer.
"In extreme circumstances the assailants can be stopped by removing the head or destroying the brain. I will repeat that: by removing the head or destroying the brain.” Oh no! It’s z-z-z-zombies!
Of course that was a scene from the motion picture Shaun of the Dead, a comedy based on zombies. That particular film never really explains where the zombies came from, but other stories featuring the undead have, in the past, offered explanations. These have included Hell being overpopulated, with Satan reliving the days of his youth when he played the innkeeper in his school nativity by rejecting the souls of the sinfully departed. “Sorry, but there’s no room at the inn-ferno!”
I like to assume that Satan makes bad puns, if only to lighten the mood down there a little bit.
Perhaps research into understanding how we age in relation to the degeneration of DNA and onset of cell-death could one day lead to us unlocking the ‘secret of life’
These explanations of zombiehood are all fine and fun but crucially based upon fantasy. A more recent trend has been to try and rope science into the whole affair. But just how plausible is the idea of science creating zombies? Debatably, one of the first famous examples of making a zombie with science comes from the classic novel Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley, where the monster created by the mad doctor is reanimated using a machine that has lots of exciting shiny and flashy bits, and seems to be powered by lightning.
It may be worth nothing that lightning can also be used to provide the necessary power to send a DeLorean forward through time. Perhaps research into understanding how we age in relation to the degeneration of DNA and onset of cell-death could one day lead to us unlocking the ‘secret of life’ Dr. Frankenstein wished to discover, but the message of Shelley’s tale is not one of encouragement but warning. As the alternative title ‘The Modern Prometheus’ hints: play with fire and you’ll get burnt!
Zombies are now usually thought of as half-decomposing, mindless, and motivated only by their desire to spread the illness and to get themselves some braiiiiins! Films such as ‘Resident Evil’ cite mysterious viruses as the reason behind zombification, implying that once infected the virus can harness the residual energy the body has after death, which causes fingernails and hair to continue to grow, in order to reanimate its dead host and turn them into a blood-craving vector for viral spread. I’m afraid that this is bobbins, as the hair and nails don’t grow after death, but the skin tightens and shrinks giving the false impression.
Films like Brain Dead and 28 Days (weeks, months, years – whatever you want) Later both feature monkeys starting it all off. In Brain Dead it’s a mysterious evil rat-monkey that just makes you into a zombie for no adequately-explored reason. In 28 Days Later those pesky scientists have infected the poor primates with rage, which somehow spreads resulting in a lot of angry people running around and trying to ‘do each other in’ just for the sheer fun of it.
But so far, so bad. None of this science is every going to actually produce zombies. By fiddling with genetics, or violining with viruses, we will not activate some sort of zombie apocalypse. There is however there is one example in nature of zombies.
Everyone get your chainsaws and shotguns and cricket bats or whatever your weapon of choice may be, and get ready because here come the zombie… Caterpillars. That’s right, it has recently been found that a parasitic strain of wasp (called Glyptapanteles) lays its eggs inside a caterpillar. Once the eggs hatch the wasp larvae begin to feed on the caterpillar’s body fluids, and when they’re fully grown they eat their way out through the caterpillar’s skin before making for the nearest branch to hang from, wrapped up in a lovely cocoon.
The caterpillar, still alive, no longer goes about its business as usual. Now, the caterpillar stays with the larvae and guards their cocoons. And if any of those pesky beetles come anywhere near the cocoons the caterpillar gives them the thrashing of a lifetime! It has been found that not all larvae leave the caterpillar, and this protective behaviour is attributed to the larvae controlling the caterpillar. Once the wasps enter the pupal stage the caterpillar promptly dies.
This means that we effectively have voodoo wasps controlling zombie caterpillars to do their evil bidding! So after all the talk of viruses and monkeys, in the end it’s the voodoo wasps you should be looking out for! I think I’m going to get on the phone to Wes Craven – he’ll snap this idea up! ‘Voodoo Wasp Apocalypse’ coming soon, to a cinema near you!
The zombie caterpillar is scary. just scary.
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