Since the appearance of the Revelation of John the Theologian, mankind has been afraid of the Apocalypse for centuries. However, despite the fact that past fears turned out to be empty, experts claim that the Apocalypse has always been and is next to us because we carry it inside.
Evolutionary biologist Athena Aktipis of Arizona State University, who hosts a podcast called "Zombified," recalls that more than half of the species on Earth are parasites. In an interview with Asia Times, she says:
"If you look at the proportion of species that are parasitic to one degree or another, you will see an interesting fact: more than half of the species we know on Earth are parasites."
And, as Dr. Aktipis says, one of these parasites may well lead to a real "zombie apocalypse" - you only need one small evolutionary leap or the right mutation.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), a single-celled parasite called Toxoplasma already infects about 40 million Americans a year. This parasite has been discovered for a long time and, as everyone thought, it is well known. However, as new research has found out, toxoplasmosis radically affects human behavior.
Dr. Aktipis says: “The parasite [Toxoplasma] has evolved somehow. When it gets into a rat, it affects its nervous system, making the rat consider the smell of cat urine very attractive. Therefore, an infected rat, instead of running away from the cat, seeks the smell, running up to the cat closely, after which the cat eats it, initiates and, thereby, begins a new life cycle of Toxoplasma. And now tell me: if this is not a zombie, then what is it ?!"
Humans can become infected with the deadly parasite simply by eating undercooked meat or by contact with their pets - just cleaning the litter box is enough. And when the parasite enters the nervous system, a person begins to have personality disorders, up to schizophrenia.
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At one time it was only a scientific theory, but today it is all a reliably proven medical fact. Today it is known that people infected with Toxoplasma have neuroticism, overestimated self-esteem and a tendency to take unnecessary risks, while the reaction rate decreases, after which people have an accident. These are statistics!
Sometimes acute Toxoplasma infection leads to psychotic symptoms clinically indistinguishable from schizophrenia. At the same time, what surprises psychiatrists is that Toxoplasma infection leads to characteristic damage to astrocytes in the brain, exactly the same as that observed in patients with schizophrenia.
And even more: if toxoplasmosis is mistakenly treated with antipsychotic drugs, such as haloperidol, which has zero antibacterial effect, psychotic symptoms disappear because haloperidol…. selectively kills toxoplasma.
Finally, all patients with schizophrenia have increased levels of antibodies to this pathogen. Why!?
Anthropologists are making even more surprising discoveries about Toxoplasma. So, over the past decades, they have found out that differences in culture and customs of different peoples of the world strictly correlate with the prevalence of toxoplasmosis in a particular area, and where this level is higher, there are the most strange customs.
On this basis, Dr. Aktipis believes that Toxoplasma is already a zombie parasite in itself, the evolution of which opens up global prospects for him in general, for which evolution has excellent working examples.
Mushroom Ophiocordyceps unilateralis, Cordyceps one-sided. The peculiarity of this fungus is that it changes the behavior of the host organism, exhibiting the so-called adaptive manipulation of the parasite. 2-3 weeks after the fungus enters the body, the infected ant leaves the colony, climbs to a height of about 30 cm in the northern part of the plant and fixes itself on the leaf, digging into the vein with its jaws - the mushrooms thereby provide themselves the best position for the spread of spores. After the death of an ant, the fungus grows through its entire body, and a red-brown fruiting body of the fungus grows from its head. Dead ants continue to spread the spores of the fungus, and the ant's cuticle becomes, as it were, a protective sheath for the parasite. Moreover, the mushroom grows twice as long as the ant's length, after which it starts sexual reproduction. For such manipulation of behavior, the one-sided cordyceps forms a complex cellular network inside the ant's body, which braids all the internal organs and at the chemical level controls every corner of its body.
The chalcidoid rider, Euderus set, is another example of adaptive manipulation. Euderus set is a small wasp that parasitizes walnut wasps. The life cycle of wasps includes the formation of so-called galls (ink nuts) on the leaves in which the wasp larvae grow.
When the wasp grows up, it gnaws a hole in the gall and flies away. But, if the wasp larva is infected with the parasitoid Euderus set, it tries to gnaw a hole in the gall ahead of time, does not cope and sticking out into the small hole made only the head die. After that, the larva of the parasitoid devours the body of the wasp, and when it eats away the head stuck in the opening of the gall, an individual of the newborn parasite appears from there.
Thus, as Dr. Aktipis explains with these examples, adaptive manipulation does not imply that the parasite will have a complex nervous system some fall. Toxoplasma is evolutionarily much lower than the rat, but it still controls it perfectly.
Actually, even a virus, such as Rabies virus, a rabies virus that makes infected animals attack and bite at everyone, can control the behavior, thereby ensuring the spread of itself with saliva. Therefore, evolution or secret military laboratories have a lot of excellent working samples.
Toxoplasma, rabies viruses or some exotic mushrooms will go into action, whether the zombie pathogen will become an experiment of crazy military personnel or evolution will make a jump on its own - it doesn't matter anymore. The main thing is that in the case of such a small evolutionary step, the zombie apocalypse can begin at any time.