An interesting take on zombies would be a virally mediated analgesia.
This kind of zombie plague has already happened before. Leprosy-induced neuropathy has been a thing for all of human history.
You'd just need to improve upon it.
There's a reason people born with congenital analgesia don't often survive childhood, and why leprosy is so lethal.
Restaurant workers scalding their forearms down to the muscle, warehouse workers not noticing they've crushed toes, etc
Or people who'd let illnesses go ignored until far too late.
All denied medical care
Whole economic sectors dissolving as the manual labor required literally tears apart the workers
You're in the waiting room next to a guy whose foot is rotting off. On the other side is a woman with 3rd degree burns on one entire arm
They'd be given nothing, perhaps a bipartisan means-tested $300 check.
You don't need a rage virus if a perfectly normal one can cause rage.
You're gonna need a virus that specifically targets either the peripheral nervous system, or does better: retroviral mutation of the PRDM12 gene.
For this, you need to engineer a lentivirus.
HIV is the best known lentivirus, but isn't ideal
https://t.co/PdKf2SDnL3
You want airborne transmission with high r0.
Measles would work perfectly if it had lentiviral characteristics.
Bam: highly contagious, incredibly infectious, airborne analgesia with fast incubation *and* added immunological suppression.
They will get all the rage they need when US society tries its bullshit on them.
Or rice https://t.co/TRTsg6UUwh
More from Anosognosiogenesis
An interesting thing about carp is that they can go into anoxic hibernation and switch to an anaerobic metabolism based on converting glycogen to ethanol.
The waste ethanol is diffused out the gills
https://t.co/V3D1umHf04
Carp can switch over to an anaerobic metabolism and quietly exhale booze until the situation gets better.
They basically evolved the same metabolic pathway as yeast, independently.
In theory, if you spent a few thousand years breeding carp for it, you could use them to make booze.
They'd be enormous, almost entirely glycogen deposits with a fish added as an afterthought.
The really interesting thing about anaerobic carp, is that they can go 4-5 months without oxygen by relying on liver glycogen.
You, a human, have only about 100 grams of glycogen in your liver, about 400 more grams in your skeletal muscles. Call it 500 grams total.
In humans, glycogen is also burned for energy. This is where the marathon runner's bonk comes from: you only have about 2,000 calories worth, and running a marathon burns those 2,000 calories.
The waste ethanol is diffused out the gills
https://t.co/V3D1umHf04
Carp can switch over to an anaerobic metabolism and quietly exhale booze until the situation gets better.
They basically evolved the same metabolic pathway as yeast, independently.
In theory, if you spent a few thousand years breeding carp for it, you could use them to make booze.
They'd be enormous, almost entirely glycogen deposits with a fish added as an afterthought.
The really interesting thing about anaerobic carp, is that they can go 4-5 months without oxygen by relying on liver glycogen.
You, a human, have only about 100 grams of glycogen in your liver, about 400 more grams in your skeletal muscles. Call it 500 grams total.
In humans, glycogen is also burned for energy. This is where the marathon runner's bonk comes from: you only have about 2,000 calories worth, and running a marathon burns those 2,000 calories.
Look at some historical examples of mass psychogenic illnesses: dancing plagues, laughing plagues, meowing nuns,
Here's a video on them:
They are interesting, but what is more interesting to me is Culture Bound Syndrome. https://t.co/hMKaApUMZn
Basically: mass psychogenic illness, and presentation of various mental illnesses, do not occur in a vacuum. Cultures shape them.
For instance, Koro.
There have been several mass outbreaks of men completely convinced their penises are shrinking, anchoring them with string at night so they don't get sucked back inside.
Almost all in Southeast
Here's a description of one outbreak in Hainan in 1984:
Here's a video on them:
They are interesting, but what is more interesting to me is Culture Bound Syndrome. https://t.co/hMKaApUMZn
Basically: mass psychogenic illness, and presentation of various mental illnesses, do not occur in a vacuum. Cultures shape them.
For instance, Koro.
There have been several mass outbreaks of men completely convinced their penises are shrinking, anchoring them with string at night so they don't get sucked back inside.
Almost all in Southeast
Here's a description of one outbreak in Hainan in 1984:
More from Society
Sandbank Danger, A Thread
Controversy Has Been Caused By The Digging Of A Narrow Channel By A Resort On A Sandbank Near K. Hinmafushi.
Hinmafushi Council President Shan Ibrahim Stated To Sun That The Resort, Which Dug The Trench Creating A River On The Sandbank, Did Not Have Ownership Over The Sandbank.
Officials From The Island Of Hinmafushi Had Traveled To The Sandbank To Stop The Process Of Digging The Trench When They Became Aware Of It, Said Shan.
Officials Were Now Redepositing The Sand Removed From The Sandbank.
Controversy Has Been Caused By The Digging Of A Narrow Channel By A Resort On A Sandbank Near K. Hinmafushi.
Hinmafushi Council President Shan Ibrahim Stated To Sun That The Resort, Which Dug The Trench Creating A River On The Sandbank, Did Not Have Ownership Over The Sandbank.
Officials From The Island Of Hinmafushi Had Traveled To The Sandbank To Stop The Process Of Digging The Trench When They Became Aware Of It, Said Shan.
Officials Were Now Redepositing The Sand Removed From The Sandbank.
— Ahmed Aznil (@AhmedAznil) January 21, 2021