OK, so “Days Gone” from PlayStation 4 developer Bend Studio looks pretty rad – a chance for all of us to nerd out about our free-roam zombie, bounty hunting biker and grumbly voiced (anti?) hero fantasies all at the same time! Certain parts of the June E3 gameplay demo alone gave me a small heart attack from that deliciously tense anxiety!

But all this zombie fandom gets me noggin’ a thinkin’. What, really, is the likelihood of a real-life zombie apocalypse? I normally go in for the classic nuclear devastation, but let’s talk about zombies for a moment.

The realities of the living dead

When you start delving into the science of the dead rising from their graves (however shallow) and truly messing up your hair-do, you realise that it’s not going to happen. Dead things are dead, and that’s a beautiful fact of life.

However, occult zombie-raising magic aside, the idea of an infected human turning crazy-eyed and attacking everything in sight is not quite as farfetched. Indeed, it’s even entirely possible … given certain very specific situations happening the precisely correct way.

In a 2013 article from National Geographic’s Voices, writer Christine Dell’Amore spoke with a microbiologist – Joan Slonczewski – about this very topic.

“I suppose you could imagine a [new neurotropic] virus that would cut off the higher brain function and then induce a starvation-like state and could thereby induce the disabled person to go after brains,” she told Dell’Amore.

-Read more: Dell’Amore’s Voices article (pretty interesting).

Indeed, as many of you may already know, there are certain parasitic organisms that can infect a host, taking control of its brain functions (to a degree) and causing it to, among other options, commit suicide. For example, Toxoplasma gondii, according to a journal entry in PLoS One, can entirely remove the fear of cats in mice. No fear = death.

Ophiocordyceps unilateralis, on the other hand, is a fungus that is known to infect ants, causing them to find a temperate area where fungi can grow, then clamp onto a leaf and wait until death. The fungus then sprouts from the ant’s head and releases its spores. You can see a concept of this included in the hit PS3 game “The Last of Us”.

So what if the fear that was removed in mice was a self-control mechanism removed in humans? Or the parasite in question suddenly needs energy to live, so instead of clamping down and awaiting growth, the host has to consume energy – e.g. life, e.g. humans.

Will this happen in my lifetime?

Fuck it, we’ll find out, eh?

OK, but for reals, it’s entirely possible but probably won’t. Dell’Amore also interviewed microbiologist and Ebola expert Kartik Chandran, who stated that it’s entirely plausible two viruses could mutate together, but even if this did happen, the resulting offspring would probably be poorly functional. Like a stereotypical inbred mutant baby from some post-apocalyptic fiction.

It’s also possible that a singular strain would accidentally mutate an advantage, thus being able to spread far more rapidly and effectively than its more primitive counterpart. Again, though, this is quite unlikely.

I’m sorry, but you’re going to have to go to school or work tomorrow – the zombies aren’t coming, yet.

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