My last post got a little bit out of hand, so I had to continue it onto this one. We're discussing why movie zombies are scientifically silly. We started with how the trope of the zombie virus has too high a mortality rate to be sustained and spreads much faster than it really could.

Now, today, we're going to discuss the elephant in the room: How does a virus make someone come back from the dead anyway? Short answer is, it can't. That's silly! Dead is dead. Oh wait! There might be a little wiggle room there. Not much but a little. There is, for example, something called The Lazarus Syndrome. The short version of this is that sometimes, someone is declared dead, then after a while, wakes up. Not dead. It's not a common thing but it's real.

But how would a virus make that happen? It seems very risky, to stop someone's heart for a little while, then start it going again, even if you (Assuming you're a virus) could do it. True, there would probably be some brain damage that would work to your advantage. It would make them seem a bit like zombies. But you have to figure the reanimation rate is going to be pretty low. In the movies, it's 100%, except for the occasional bullet to the head or bonfire. That doesn’t seem very realistic, does it?

But let's think of it another way. Instead of bringing people back to life, a clever virus might just put its victims into comas while it rewires some parts of the brain. It might even release some chemicals to make it look like deep hibernation. A good examination will be able to tell they aren't really dead but most of us will be fooled. By the way, there's a fair amount of research into hibernation¹.

Some people think that if we could learn how to put humans into hibernation, it would have lots of benefits. It would help transplant patients survive until an organ was available. Other people see it as the key to long term space travel. Sure, it takes a thousand years to get from here to some other star with habitable planets around it but who cares if you're asleep the whole time?

There's a tiny amount of support in recent research² for the idea of seeming to be dead while still being alive. By tiny, I mean really really small. But maybe not microscopic. Anyway, researchers at a number of hospitals used various techniques including fMRI and EEG to check for brain activity in response to the environment in patients with traumatic brain injuries. They found that around a quarter of the patients, who seemed to be completely checked out of the world, actually responded in their brains to verbal instructions.

Yeah. You know that thing where they say talk to people, even if they're in comas, because they can hear you? Sometimes, they can.

You thought I was talking about zombies just for the fun of it didn't you? You never expected me to bring in some real science, huh? Hah! Well, I did. That doesn't mean it's not fun to talk about zombies, though.

Getting back to that conversation, it's a real stretch from, "Sometimes, people in deep vegetative or comatose states can hear when you talk to them," to "Sometimes, people who seemed dead can jump up and try to eat your brains." This brings us to another one of my complaints about zombies in movies. In the movies, everyone turns into a zombie, sooner or later. Mostly sooner. I don't buy it. Maybe³ a virus could make you hibernate so that other people think you're dead. And maybe, while you're out, it can wreck the parts of your brain that stop you from taking a bite out of everyone you meet. And maybe it could wake you up again afterwards, to run off and spread it to new victims by biting them. BUT ...

I don't think it's going to work in every case. Most people who hibernate or go comatose and then have brain damage, are just going to die. They aren't going to come back as zombies. Instead of 100% of the population coming back as zombies, I doubt it would be more than about 1%. In a world of 8 billion people, if only half of them die from the zombie virus, that's only 40,000,000 zombies. I'm not sure that's enough to make a good zombie movie out of. I guess it's worth a try.

Oh! I was going to close it there but one last thing about these virus-made zombies: They aren't getting proper nutrition. They've been through some serious physical damage. Brain damage. They aren't smart enough to come in out of the rain. What little immune system they have left is going to be overwhelmed by all kinds of opportunistic infections. They'll be like mobile petri dishes that don't just bite, they also cough, vomit and ooze. And then, slowly, they disintegrate.

Hopefully that will give you hope when the zombie apocalypse finally gets here. Some people will survive the disease. Most who don't, won't come back as zombies. And the ones who come back as zombies, won't hang around for very long. Maybe a couple months. And the next batch of zombie movies will be much more realistic, complete with competing plagues!

Don't you feel better now that I've enlightened you?

Here's that prompt: "A surreal hospital room with a patient hooked up to a heart monitor. The room is chaotic and eerie, with strange objects scattered around. A nurse, who appears to be a zombie with pale skin and dark circles under her eyes, stands nearby. Out the window, a giant virus with tentacles is rolling down the street, creating a sense of impending doom. The scene is bizarre and unsettling, blending horror and absurdity."