Episodio 4: La Ciencia de los Zombies

odd nation

00:00:28 - You are listening to the zombie, the podcast, in which we are going for the your brain!

00:00:59 - Ah ah ah ah ah ah ah!

00:01:02 - Hello, hello, hello, welcome to everyone and everyone to this zombie program.

00:01:32 - My name is Jerónimo Rico and it's a pleasure to be here once again before all of you.

00:01:39 - In this fourth episode of Alos Zombie, we are going to continue with this journey that we have started through the story of the zombies and the living dead and we are going to be discussing about this issue.

00:01:52 - Are zombies really living dead?

00:01:55 - Let's examine what the science says about them and if it is possible or not that there are zombies in reality

00:02:02 - For this we are going to count with a very special guest at the end of this episode

00:02:09 - And then it turns out that the answer to this question is not so obvious

00:02:14 - At first we could say that yes, that all zombies are living dead

00:02:18 - But this, as we are going to see in this episode, is not entirely true

00:02:22 - As we also saw in the first episode of this show, which, if you haven't heard of it, I recommend you to do it.

00:02:29 - In its origin, the zombies, more than living dead, were slaves, who possibly had been drugged with the poison of the fish-globe.

00:02:38 - It was an anthropologist named Wade Davis who wrote a book called La Serpiente y el Arcoiris where they said they had drugged them with this toxin called tetradotoxin and they almost had to experience a false state of death.

00:02:55 - After that they were reanimated and drugged again, this time with Scopolamine, the famous Burundanga, to submit to the perverse desires of the Bokor.

00:03:05 - That Bokor was a cheeser who enslaved them, and generally the zombies finished their days working on the plantations of sugar from Haiti or probably also in the plantations of New Orleans and along the Mississippi, where we know that the voodoo has also made very deep roots.

00:03:24 - And the question that arises is that the zombies were not necessarily dead, and that is the great scientific discussion about it, can we revive what is dead?

science could not revive a cell that has already lost what kept it alive.

00:03:58 - And of course, this brings us to a bigger question.

00:04:02 - What is...

00:04:04 - What does life actually mean?

00:04:07 - And it seems to me that even scientists do not agree to solve that point.

00:04:17 - But let's go a little back and remember the monsters we talked about in the previous chapters.

00:04:22 - Many of which were really dead, the vampire was dead, the mummy was dead, the skeleton living, of course, was dead, and the Frankenstein monster had been revived from several corpses, therefore he was also dead.

00:04:39 - That made the idea that the zombie was also dead was what the European imaginary in the European imaginary, orienting from then on all the artistic production on the subject.

00:04:52 - As we pointed out in the last chapter, when we discussed the psychology of monsters, science is going to take a fundamental role in the imagery of these.

00:05:01 - It is the origin of science fiction that was started in cinema and literature of the time, which is going to take the central role in explaining to all the new monsters.

00:05:12 - All of this happens in the first four decades of the 20th century.

00:05:30 - Then a series of stories emerged that represented the new fears of humanity, to the radioactivity, to the consumption, to the neurological diseases, to the communism and well, a whole number of phenomena that start to affect society that are going to derive in aliens and robots, in unknown monsters, in interdimensional beings coming from some twisted master plan that slept and waited for millennia to awaken to submit to the universe in the primordial chaos.

00:06:06 - As several of the writers of this time thought, it was about occupants of the rendijas and the borders of the well-known, which were gradually taken by the magazines, the newspapers of the world and of course the theaters of cinema, leading the skin of the spectators.

00:06:36 - Maybe the most famous of these authors of what we now know as Pulp Literature was H.P. Lovecraft.

00:06:48 - For those who don't know him, this man was an American author who lived in a city south of Boston called Provience, which is the capital of the state of Rhode Island, on the east coast of the United States. I don't know Boston, but historically

00:07:02 - It seems that it has a climate that is dark, perhaps even darker.

00:07:06 - It is a very humid place all year and full of very interesting places such as caves, cliffs, thick trees, and distant places that Little Wolfcraft used to visit when he was a child and that were to his untimely imagination.

00:07:23 - Also in the time when Wolfcraft lived, it was forbidden to be a very industrial city and a port, where all kinds of sailors arrived, with stories of ultramar, many of them Casadores de Vallenas, who in the end, plagued the minds of the writer with scary stories.

00:07:45 - And it is precisely Lovecraft, who is going to describe one of the first stories of zombies, where they are linked to the scientific origin of the non-murals.

00:07:54 - It is about the Herbert West Reanimator, a story written between 1921 and 1922, which is a clear example of this fusion that took place between the living dead and the zombie of the voodoo, but enormously more bloody and repugnant.

00:08:16 - In this story we are told of two scientific friends, one of them, the narrator, who

00:08:21 - They begin to experiment with corpses in search of finding a cure for death and manage to revive them, but generating as a consequence some rabid and sedentary monsters of blood that deviate their violence on the streets.

00:08:34 - And it is worth mentioning that in the 80s they also made an inspired film in this text, which is simply called Reanimators, and which can be considered an entire work of cult among the lovers of horror and the sci-fi, if you have not seen it

00:08:49 - So I recommend you to check it out.

00:08:55 - Something curious is that in this case they don't use electricity as the famous image of Dr. Frankenstein reviving his monster, but they use a chemical formula.

00:09:05 - In reality, that image of the rays falling and reanimating the corpse is not the original of Mary Shelley's book, but it's going to be popularized by the movie starring Boris Karloff.

00:09:15 - But following with the topic, the interesting thing here is that we are faced with an ethical dilemma that can currently be very relevant, and it is up to where science can reach or the scientific to solve certain enigmas.

00:09:32 - In this case because of returning life to what is already dead, something that Mary Shelley pointed out very well in her famous work by the way, because it turns out that in reality the monster in these works is not the revived dead, but the scientific, despite saying the creator, behind him, who puts his obsessive objective ahead of the ethics.

00:09:53 - I think that we all currently have the idea of the zombie virus that has become so popular in the movies, but at that time it was not a concept that was so popular in the mass culture.

00:10:04 - Now it is much more present, and yet we can not realize its true implications,

00:10:10 - Because it is true that scientists dedicate a lot of effort to achieve experiments that evade the idea that what is dead cannot be revived, and in fact it is very well known the case of all these millionaires who have ordered that their bodies be frozen, cryogenized, so that they can be revived, once the technology is developed, if this is

00:10:32 - But this does not really answer the question, right?

00:10:37 - Let's think then, what would happen so that it is possible to animate the dead, as the movies have represented us, and let's see if it can be possible.

films and let's see if it can be possible.

00:11:00 - First of all, the implacable climate of the earth would affect the zombies in many ways.

00:11:07 - The high heat and humidity will accelerate the deterioration of the rotten meat by providing the perfect conditions for proliferation of insects and bacteria, right?

00:11:16 - Which is component of all that, where their enzymes are established, which would lead to an imminent degradation of the body of the zombies.

00:11:24 - Second, is the subject of the brain.

00:11:27 - Yes, the brain.

00:11:29 - It turns out that it is one of the most difficult questions to solve, because the central human nervous system controls all our muscle activity, shooting electric signals to the muscle cells.

00:11:41 - After this, there is the issue of immunology, of the cells and enzymes that protect us from microorganisms.

00:11:49 - Will they work in a living dead?

00:11:52 - How could it continue to have a zombie, an immune system that would protect it from being eaten from inside out by the thousands and millions of microorganisms to which we are exposed to all living beings?

00:12:02 - An interesting aspect is what your bones are referring to, since you have to keep in mind that the bone system is also formed by cells, which we know would have to maintain that vital state, when these women, the bones, are made more and more broken.

00:12:19 - A zombie could not simply keep their feet, their vertebral column collapsed and any blow would cause a total rupture of their bones,

00:12:28 - That is to say, if there was an apocalypse and a zombie, most of the living dead could not even stand up to chase them.

00:12:38 - In the same way, we have to think that the orcular cells and the nervous system also die, so the living dead could not capture visual stimuli.

00:12:48 - That is to say, the zombies would be completely blind, and the same happens with the rest of the senses, there were neurons that would transmit the information to their brains.

00:12:58 - That's why the zombies couldn't relate to the environment.

00:13:01 - They wouldn't see, they wouldn't smell, they wouldn't listen.

00:13:04 - Even if they touched them, they couldn't feel anything, since they wouldn't have the meaning of the touch either.

00:13:09 - So they couldn't really hunt humans, because they couldn't avoid us.

00:13:17 - All of this makes us have to rethink what we usually know as zombies.

to know if in reality it is feasible that they can exist.

00:13:29 - In fact, if we remove all those aspects that cannot be given in nature and renew the concept of a zombie, something that is not actually dead, it is perfectly possible and verosimil its existence.

00:13:42 - How?

00:13:43 - That in reality there are no zombies?

00:13:45 - They will be thinking about you.

00:13:47 - And I will answer them.

00:13:48 - Yes, the zombies exist and in reality they are more frequent than they think.

00:13:53 - And there are several cases of it in nature.

00:14:00 - There are ants that live in the top of the forests of Thailand, which coexist with a kind of fungus known as Ophiocordyceps.

00:14:09 - This fungus, when it is reproduced, releases spores that travel through the air and can be digested by one of these ants accidentally.

00:14:18 - And once within its body, the spores of the fungus are able to move to the central nervous system of the ant, to its brain and once there, to take control of its behavior.

00:14:32 - This sounds quite zombie, doesn't it?

00:14:34 - As Longo grows and develops, releases a series of chemical substances that interfere with the central nervous system of the ant,

00:14:43 - Demand is so strong that this poor little creature no longer controls absolutely anything of its behavior and ends up wandering without will until the tree falls to the floor, where it is inert.

00:14:56 - After this, the hongu of course continues his cycle, taking as a bonus the ant and planting its roots on the ground, to later develop and release its spores again continuing with this cycle of life and death uninterruptedly.

00:15:13 - This is only one of multiple examples that exist about the parasitism of zombies, where an individual takes control over another, just like the case of the bocor, the echicero voodoo that enslaved the Haitians, and we get to this point where it is irresistible to imagine that a hongo of this type could access our brain and infect us, turning us into something similar to the zombie of the movies.

00:15:43 - And well, as I promised in this chapter, we have the presence of a very special guest

00:15:50 - To complement, of course, these reflections on his final part

00:15:53 - My great friend and brother of the soul, Michael Scorsia

00:15:56 - Thank you for being here and accepting the invitation to join us

00:16:01 - Hello heroes, how are you? I'm glad to be here today in your program

00:16:06 - And of course a greeting to all our audience

00:16:09 - Well, first I want to tell you that Michael is finishing his master's degree in astrophysics at the International University of Valencia, and is the vice president of Fudarta, the foundation for the development of radio astronomy and applied technologies, in which they develop technical projects of research and vulgarity.

00:16:28 - Yes, well, in Fudarta we are dedicated to developing pieces that will be used in the instrumentation of radio telescopes, we provide technical accessories and participate in different research projects associated with space sciences. And what we learned, we share that knowledge acquired during all these processes, through scientific communication or what we know as science education. For young people and adults, through workshops, talks and seminars in in educational and informal spaces, we are very versatile in this aspect.

00:17:05 - Well, Michael, after all this talk that you have sent me about science and zombies,

00:17:09 - I want to know your opinion on that, what pieces of zombies and above all, could be the case of an extraterrestrial virus that will zombify us?

00:17:17 - And if so, what would happen?

00:17:19 - Well, well, here, analyzing it from the scientific point of view, not. Because they are fundamental facts, we do not have evidence from outside the planet

00:17:30 - Earth at the time of this wonderful transmission, and without it it is not possible to say that a situation like this is possible in the immediate. Will you wonder why? Is it necessary to know what types of processes the extraterrestrial organism develops to stay alive and prolong its descendants.

00:17:52 - Of course, we already know that in reality it is very difficult to stay alive, but if there is parasitic zombification as we saw.

00:17:59 - Yes, as you mentioned it before and I want to bring to you another example of this, and it is that there is a parasite, the leucochloridium paradoxum, it is a platernmite, which zombifies the caracoles powering their eyes, which are like tentacles, the eyes are inflamed and they are going to become like a kind of worms, and at the same time forces the caracol to follow the sunlight, this makes it expose itself against its predators, you know, for them those large tentacles, which are the eyes of the caracol, will act precisely as worms and it will end up being made of prey.

00:18:47 - Inherited the snail, by the ave, precisely, the mature parasite and it reproduces in the stomach of the ave.

00:18:55 - It puts the eggs, precisely, this parasite in the straight of the ave and these at once are going to be expelled when the ave is defective.

00:19:06 - Once on earth, the aces will feed other poor incauts, snails that will pass through there, that will repeat the zombification cycle because the caracoles will feed on these ashes.

00:19:20 - How crazy it would be a video that would have an extraterrestrial parasite that could control us in this way.

00:19:29 - Of course, although I must clarify that we know all this process precisely because of the evidence collected during the scientific investigation of those directly involved, which it is not possible to make an analogy with an extraterrestrial virus from the first hit at this time.

00:19:49 - Of course, it is important to mention that all this is more the field of science fiction once more.

00:19:55 - Yes, because now, from the wonderful and fascinating perspective of science fiction, there have been very interesting scenarios where this happens.

00:20:06 - For example, in the saga of the movie Alien that fascinates me,

00:20:10 - The process through which the alien prolongs his life and assures his offspring has similar nuances to what could happen with the parasites and all the rest.

00:20:20 - I think that the combination between imagination and the studies in the biodiversity of our planet related to the sombrification allows us to plan hypothetical simulations where there could be organisms that present very similar patterns, but in their own natural environments,

00:20:38 - That is to say, on their planet.

00:20:40 - I think that in that sense the most important thing is that there should be a certain compatibility to be able to do the zombification and to prevent the WESPE from dying in the process.

00:20:52 - There should be a transitory evolution so that this happens.

00:20:56 - Yes, an extraterrestrial parasite zombifier should be a true achievement of bioengineering.

00:21:02 - Now, if there was a civilization that could travel through the cosmos, Michael,

00:21:07 - It could be the case that he would send a probe that contains a virus or a parasite like this, a snail parasite, and it would zombify us like an internal destructive form, right?

00:21:17 - Wow, yes, yes, yes.

00:21:19 - That would be crazy.

00:21:20 - And in fact it is possible that there are nations on the planet Earth experimenting with something like a firearm, if we could really be the ones who zombify us too, in the future on another planet.

00:21:32 - But hey, in the hypothetical case that a zombie virus will attack us,

00:21:36 - I think that first it would have to die a large number of people before the virus could evolve in a natural way and in this way, zombify humans.

00:21:52 - Yes, well, thinking that the virus would have to come out, for example, of a secret laboratory, like, I don't know, having reached the case of COVID, although it raises another series of very complicated questions to answer in this program.

00:22:04 - But it could happen.

00:22:05 - Obviously, he doesn't eat anything immediately.

00:22:07 - Or does he?

00:22:09 - It's very interesting, all this.

00:22:11 - Another example of zombification could be, perhaps, the cybernetics.

00:22:15 - If somehow controlled by the maquilans, or controlled by other beings through these, what is your opinion on this, Michael?

00:22:22 - This is a very interesting idea.

00:22:25 - Taking into account that this area of knowledge seeks to understand the behavior of the mechanical and electrical energy involved in a physical process.

00:22:34 - Now, the cybernetics have a real application with the idea that you plant, we can see it with the company Neuralink that is developing interfaces to connect electronic devices to our brain, which is a complex process and requires a multidisciplinary team.

00:22:58 - Now, I consider that we must add an additional ingredient to all this thing that we are building here so interesting and all this journey.

00:23:06 - To this recipe, this zombie soup and zombification, right?

00:23:11 - Through the cybernetic and it is the artificial intelligence whose acronym in Spanish is the famous IA.

00:23:18 - Remembering that one of the pillars of the zombie phenomenon for this specific case is the control.

00:23:25 - To illustrate a little the idea that I want to develop, I mentioned the movie Spider-Man 2 or the Spider-Man 2 Spider-Man 2 of 2004, which is precisely directed by Toby McGuire as Spider-Man and Alfred Molina as the Doctor Octo.

00:23:41 - This last one develops an artificial intelligence to control a hardware of robotic arms during an experiment where what the Doctor tries is to manipulate a fusion reaction nuclear that comes out of control and affects a device referenced in the movie as the inhibitor chip and which acts as a defense barrier to prevent its own IA from controlling it but what ends up being the opposite?

as a result of this unfortunate fact of the comics and the movies we could say that a villain is born abrocomilla, zombificado, cierrocomilla, por una ida, puesto que esta le hará órdenes contra la fuerza voluntad de su creador.

00:24:25 - Ahora, si contrastamos la realidad con este acontecimiento ficticio, podríamos concluir que es importante no perder el control de nuestra cabeza, al permitir la instalación de dispositivos electrónicos en nuestro cerebro sin conocer los riesgos que esto conlleva.

00:24:43 - All this without a doubt is very interesting for what it implies, in fact there may be digital zombification states, as it is likely that all our audience have realized, right?

00:24:52 - I think in this case we are being slaves of social networks.

00:25:00 - But we will talk about this later.

00:25:02 - Conclusion with our topic for today, I think in summary, the problem is that science opens unexplored paths and can bring life to the zombies, perhaps not as we imagine them, but it is clear that there are millionaires and scientists who are investigating these theories of control and that they can be perfectly usable, although perhaps also ethically reprobations.

00:25:32 - For now we tell you that in the next chapter we will continue to see how the zombies continued developing in the cinema and art and we are going to talk about someone we have been waiting to talk about from the beginning, you already know who I mean I imagine, of course we are going to talk about George Romero and his great movie that changed the history of the zombies the night of the living dead super thank you very much for having listened to us we hope you liked this chapter a lot and forgive us the irony follow us on all our networks we are on facebook instagram and twitter as roba to the zombies we also invite you to follow us on spotify and start giving us a like if you liked it and share it with other zombies last but not least important I want to thank Michael for being with us today thank you very much brother, it has been a pleasure to have you here really and we hope that future occasions are repeated.

00:26:23 - Thank you very much heroes, for me it has been a pleasure, once again for the invitation and thank you to all and to all those who have listened to us and have dedicated their lifetime at this moment to have a good time here and feed us again of course in the future with the networks and do not forget well let's go for your brain well until next time

00:27:13 - Zombie

00:27:15 - Where we just

00:27:17 - Laugh

00:27:20 - Hello Hello Hello 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

00:27:24 - I don't know what you know about the Chloridin

00:27:26 - Leocochloridin

00:27:28 - Leocochloridin, right?

00:27:30 - Leocochloridin

00:27:32 - Leocochloridin

00:27:34 - Listen to the dogs

00:27:36 - Hello Hello

00:27:38 - Hello

00:27:40 - Hola.

00:27:41 - La gente se preocupa, se preocupará.

00:27:44 - ¿Por qué?

00:27:45 - No cabe un pez.

00:27:46 - No cabe un pez.