We’ve
all been there. Sitting on the couch watching a scary movie on TV with a friend
when the conversation begins. Zombies. What do we do in the event of an
apocalypse? Do we gather canned food and bullets and fight it out with the
hordes of the undead? Do we build a panic room and wait for their necrotic skin
to decay reducing the human husks to emaciated mush in the streets? Or do we
simply say, “yeah, that’s not possible, but it’s certainly damned entertaining.”?
Well,
Zombie-like symptoms are possible, the thousand yard stare, the mindless
shambling, the eternal hunger, (sounds like a teenager really…) modern
pharmaceuticals carry those side effects. Necrotic flesh? Got it. It’s called
Krokodil, people are actually drugging themselves with flesh eating diseases
willingly now, (used to take a room full of Nazis and M-4s) not to mention the
alleged cannibalistic urges employed from ingesting “Bath Salts” (NOT
recommended or condonable behavior by the author of this blog) so is it here?
Nope.
The reality is, the zombies you see in TV and films all share one thing in
common. They are completely fictional. In order to have those zombies that you
see in movies and TV in real life there
are several impossible factors that go into their creation. Let’s discuss the
improbability first before we move into why we’re even talking about zombies in
the first place.
First
up, zombies are depicted as having insatiable hunger. The processes that cause
the need to eat wouldn’t arise anymore in a zombie. If they are truly creatures
of the undead then blood would not be pumping through their body anymore, it’d
just be coagulated blobs congesting the veins and arteries (hence why you can
shoot them in the heart and nothing happens). If there’s no blood pumping, the
internal organs aren’t working, which mean signals that leptin and fat stores
are low in the digestive tract don’t get sent to the brain. Without these
signals, appetite, the main cause behind hunger, which is a sensation produced
in the hypothalamus, the brain doesn’t know to tell the person to eat. Sorry
guys, traditional zombies won’t be searching for flesh or brains.
It’s
really important to note that according the monster movie lore, since zombies
are technically dead and blood doesn’t move when you’re dead, that hunger is
not the only thing affected by a lacking circulatory system. You need blood to
keep your muscles fed. Without it they can’t move. (Rigor Mortis anybody?) If
that blood has coagulated and just sits there, the shambling about that has
affectionately coined the term “Walkers” on AMC’s “The Walking Dead” would
actually be called “Grounders”. They may be able to moan and orally grunt and
produce guttural sounds, but they certainly wouldn’t be moving toward you
anytime soon. Eventually decay would overtake them and the groaning zombie
would grunt until the brain stem fully atrophied. Point number two for the
living.
Now
what about the method of transfer? Common Zombiphile belief would lead us to
say “Don’t get bit! Zombies make Zombies by biting and scratching!” This would
simply not work. The main reasons viral and bacterial infections that transmit
via bodily fluids are able to do so are by transferring themselves from host to
host via bodily fluids. No blood is
moving. Blood is no longer in a fluid state, plus the salivary glands that
produce saliva would no longer be doing so, ergo a zombie bite wouldn’t be life
threatening, just kinky in a disturbing way.
So
why am I telling you all this? I’m sure some of you are bummed now and throwing
away your zombie survival kits but don’t do that just yet (I mean…the
government is still out there.) because researchers in New Mexico have just
developed a new cell that the media has lovingly named the Zombie Cell, and
researchers Townson and Brinker aren’t refuting this term. Let’s play mad
scientist today here at “To Infinity and…In Theory” and see if we can’t stir up some
cultures with these crazy Zombie Cells, straight out of a microbiological lab.
I give you “Residency Evil” (See what I did there…some doctors’ titles are
residents. :P)
Dawn of the Dead (…Cell)
It
was a dark and stormy night. The fluorescent lights shone brightly off the
stainless steel worktable in front of Dr. Jason Townson. He stroked his beard
feverishly, trying to figure out what went wrong. He stared at the lifeless
corpse in front of him on the table. Why
isn’t it working! Then, out of nowhere, a bolt of lightning came crashing
through the ceiling and struck the corpse, triumphantly, Dr. Townson raised his
arms to the heavens yelling, “IT’S ALIVE!”
…
Yeah…I
didn’t think you’d buy that either.
While
that makes for an entertaining made for TV movie that isn’t what researchers at
Sandia labs were trying to accomplish. So what happened? What made these
incredible zombie cells everyone’s been freaking out about??
The
answer is actually quite astounding.
Silica.
That’s
right; the same stuff that makes glass is now creating the undead cells we’re
talking about. So how do they do it? Scientists took a living tissue sample
from a pancreas. Through a complicated process they essentially washed the cell
in silica acid. This opened the pores of the cell up nicely so the silica could
get in there and do its work. What happened was it created a reinforced
cellular structure, capable of withstanding extreme temperatures, retention of
original function, and a seemingly endless half-life.
This
Cell/Silica Composite (or CSC) on top of increased resistance to heat is also
stronger when it comes to pressurization, not to mention it’s extremely
malleable. For a long, long time scientists have been trying to create
something silica based, that’s small enough to retain its 3D architectural
structure over long expanses on a nano scale. (In other words they need
something really strong, really small that is workable like rubber but
resilient like titanium) Well, scientists now believe they have it.
That’s
the Zombie Cell (Silica Biocomposite Cell) after being put through the two
processes that give it its unique capabilities. The silica acid bath is nice.
It makes the cell reinforced and strong and function perfectly. But what
happens when we bake it? After going through a burn of about 400 degrees Celsius
(around 900 Fahrenheit) all the proteins are burned out of it. This leaves a
dead cell, with the original shape of the cell it was made from, but a cell
that is capable of being re-programmed to perform some other function.
In
fact, let’s talk about some of those functions now.
Biting Off More Than
They Could Chew
In
an interview with Huffington Post Live, the general consensus between the
non-researchers was, “this is creepy.” That shows just how far the lack of
understanding of biology has come. These cells can’t replicate (not to mention
they aren’t being implicated into viruses or bacteria, just living cells) which
means they can’t reproduce spreading an infection. So if the military isn’t
trying to weaponize the undead, why are they creating these cells?
Jason
Townson very plainly states, “We aren’t entirely sure of everything we can do
with these yet.” The reality is creating 3D diatoms that retained their
structures on such of a small scale had evaded researchers for years, to the
point where many believed it couldn’t be done. When it began, they were just
simply trying to prove it could happen, now that they have, they need to figure
out what they can do with it.
The
cells can withstand enormous amounts of pressure and heat so it’s obvious they
could be used to create suits for harsh environments where no mortal soul can
tread. Their miniscule size would make them perfect for building shielding
around sensitive nano-electronics sent into space. Another use is in the
medical field where a delivery mechanism for a cancer destroying agent in the
form of a non-foreign cell is required. Scientists could take a cell from the
afflicted individual, wash it in silica, install the anti-virus inoculation and
send it on its way. So how is this possible?
Think
of it like this. You’ve spent years
working on a human-sized model of the Sears Tower made entirely out of Popsicle
sticks. You’ve built the external frame, the rectangular shape of the
skyscraper, but now it’s time to craft the more intricate details; it’s a model
so it has to be accurate.
You
spend days at the scroll saw, cutting small shapes of gargoyles, and curved
window frames. Scaling down the small outcroppings that adorn the jutting edges
of the building so they fit perfectly onto your tower. The problem? You weren’t
completely accurate. Some of the molding is a little smaller than others and one
of your gargoyles looks like it has downs syndrome. Sure would have been nice
to have some pre-fabricated Popsicle sticks to finish your model off with.
Well
thanks to Zombie Cells you can. With Zombie Cells you can take some Popsicle
sticks that may be a different color than what you intended, inject them with
the silica, add Popsicle stick/Sears Tower properties to it, and voila! You
have a perfect gargoyle the same consistency as the rest of your model. Man
that sure was easy.
This
is obviously not the most accurate description of what is truly at work here
but I hope it gives a little clearer understanding. What I’m essentially saying
in that metaphor is that any living cell can be used in this process (as far as
I’m aware of, this is fringe science so more research still has to be done)
which leaves millions of shapes and sizes open to scientists to work with. By
using different shapes they can create miniscule objects that are impossibly
strong with properties not fully understood yet.
In
other words…THIS IS SO COOL!
In
closing I don’t believe this is the dawning of the end of the world. If
anything that will probably come at the hands of the Hadron Collider (but we’ll
save that story for another time). The cells they are using are not viral, can’t
replicate, and as I effectively did above I may have ruined your outlook on the
apocalypse. But cheer up guys, Neil deGrasse Tyson, a well renowned Astrophysicist
has been quoted as saying “while Zombies are not real, I cannot, as a
physicist, rule out the possibility that there is zombie-like life persisting
under certain conditons and circumstances somewhere out there in the galaxy.”
In
other words folks, Space Zombies.
-Ryan
Sanders
For additional reading on zombie
cells, you can follow any of the links below. As always, thanks for reading!
Happy Learning!
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