I love zombies. They are possibly one of the most terrifying monsters ever created in the science fiction/horror genre, and in the last two years they’ve managed to step back into the spotlight with great fiction like Jonathan Maberry’s “Patient Zero,” and Brian Keene’s “The Rising,” just to name two. Movies like Shaun of the Dead and Night of the Living Dead continue to entertain and fascinate us as a society, but scientifically the possibility of a zombie apocalypse in which you find yourself running from your brain-hungry neighbors is pretty unrealistic… or is it?

If you’re not familiar with how zombies work, they are reanimated corpses that rise up from their graves (or their slab in the morgue,) and stalk down humans as prey. Max Brooks, author of “The Zombie Survival Guide,” went to great pains to explain the science of zombie reanimation. Brooks explains, “The parts of the brain that control memory are liquefied and used by the [zombie] virus to create more viruses and destroy motor functions. The body exists just to keep the brain alive.”

You know as well as I do, there is no such thing as a zombie virus, but there are those who believe government scientific facilities are working on biological weapons powerful enough to not only infect and kill, but reanimate those affected. Jonathan Maberry took this popular theory to a much more terrifying level in “Patient Zero,” putting the biological weapon into the hands of terrorists creating an army of super living dead soldiers.

Now I’m no scientist, you all know that, but what is the scientific possibility of a zombie virus infecting humanity? I bet you didn’t know about toxoplasmosa, did you? Toxoplasma gondii is a clever little virus that infects rats with the specific function of sending the rats to their death at the claws of cats. The virus thrives inside the intestines of cats, so what better way to get to that cozy place it calls home than by infecting rats, which get eaten by cats - most likely in the barn of the house that Jack built.

Toxoplasmosa also infects hundreds of thousands of human beings. You might even have it right now and not even know it. And the weird thing about it? Dr. E. Fuller Torrey of the Stanley Medical Research Center made a significant discovery linking the toxoplasma gondii parasite to schizophrenia in humans. In fact, Torrey discovered that women who have high antibodies to toxoplasma are more likely to give birth to children who develop schizophrenia.

Toxoplasmosa isn’t the only possibility of a zombie-like infection. Consider Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease, especially the strain caused by mad cow disease. CJD, though very rare (affecting 1 out of every 1 million people,) causes the body’s proteins to collapse in upon themselves, resulting in brain damage that deeply affects the body’s motor skills.

CJD has often been used to explain the popular zombie-like “rage virus,” as seen in films like 28 Days Later. Symptoms include speech impairment, muscle spasms, rapid developing delirium, hallucinations and a number of other uncomfortable symptoms that look an awful lot like zombie mayhem.

Of course, neither of these examples is scientific proof that a zombie apocalypse is on the horizon, but consider that secret government biological warfare thing I mentioned above for just a second. It seems a lot more possible than most of us would like to admit. In fact, I think I’m going to go out back and start practicing my shotgun skills. One can never be too prepared for the zombie apocalypse.

(Monsterrebellion)