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Scientists Create Zombie Cockroaches
Reservoir Hill writes "Zombie insects might sound like a B-movie plot device (quicktime video) but to the emerald cockroach wasp (Ampulex compressa), they're a tried and tested way to provide food for their hungry larvae. The wasp relies on cockroaches for its grisly life cycle but unlike many venomous predators, which paralyze their victims before eating them, the wasp's sting leaves the cockroach able to walk, but unable to initiate its own movement. Researchers have discovered that the wasps sting the cockroaches once to subdue them, then administer another, more precise sting right into their victim's brain. The venom works to block a neurotransmitter called octopamine with a similar action to dopamine, which is involved in preparations to execute complex behaviors such as walking. Then the wasp grabs the cockroach's antenna and leads it back to the nest 'like a dog on a leash', says one researcher. The team found that they could restore spontaneous walking behavior in stung cockroaches by giving them a compound that reactivates octopamine receptors in the insects' central nervous system. Researchers were also able to create their own zombies by injecting unstung cockroaches with a compound that blocks the receptors producing a similar effect to that of the venom."
I can't believe I remembered this.
Since when did generic MPEG video become Quicktime video?
Almost, it should be: "Emerald Cockroach Wasps Create Zombie Cockroaches, Scientists Imitate".
From the blurb above:
Researchers were also able to create their own zombies by injecting unstung cockroaches with a compound
My Karma: ran over your Dogma
StrawberryFrog
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/02/04/1649211
I wish they'd just google for the old title... that would catch most of these dupes.
"You are studying cockroaches, hm? Interesting. But MILLIONS are starving, are you going to feed them with cockroaches? Forget about your work, do something, HUMAN LIVES are on stake"
You know, there is this thing called fundamental research. You never know when data like this will be useful.
Ni.
For more insect related awesomeness the BBC made Life in the Undergrowth a documentary series presented by David Attenborough. There's some really incredible stuff in there. Wasps especially seem to have evolved lots of these rather sinister behaviours.
Nice one! Okay, two points for demonstrating that IS possible for human brains to become infected, to do the bidding of others, and reprogrammed to mindlessly spread that infection as far and wide as possible. It would have been fifty points but, y'know, spelling.
And what is this constant harping on cockroach "brains?" Their so-called "brain" is a cluster of nerve cells that runs along the ventral midline of their thoracic segment. There's three clusters of it in the "head" segment, but that doesn't control locomotion. A cockroach doesn't even need its head, except for that starving to death thing. It would have been nice if the article had been a bit more clear on where this precise injection occurs. In the head? That might blind them, but probably wouldn't rob them of "free will" (as much as a cockroach can be said to have free will). Even more impressive might be that the wasp knows in which segment of the neural ganglia to inject them in order to control their actions.
Loose the italics next time. I know it is hard to resist, but explaining a joke just makes it !funny.
The cancel button is your friend. Do not hesitate to use it.
They got the story just a wee bit wrong, your scientist friends did. Yes, the main ingredient for "zombification" is a venom - pufferfish venom or some other analogous neurotoxin) for the paralysis bit and clinical depression as an added bonus, but the traditional cocktails which have been studied also contain a lysergine and some THC to complete "operation mindfuck", plus additional bits of stuff that inhibit the autonomous nervous system and slow down metabolic processes - sometimes in non-obvious ways. This is something that's been in development since the stone age began. If some obscure herb is in there, it's in there for a reason.
Btw, if you ever meet a zombie, make her a nice cup of St John's wort tea.
Something bad is coming when people are suddenly anxious to tell the truth.
actually, if you follow the related articles you get this paper:
Clinical findings in three cases of zombification
ProfRoland Littlewood MRCPsycha, Corresponding Author Contact Information and Chavannes Douyon MDb
aDepartments of Anthropology and Psychiatry, University College, London WC1E 6BT, UK
bPolyclinique Medica, Port-au-Prince, Haiti
Available online 19 August 1998.
Article Outline
Methods
Findings
Conclusion
Further Reading
References
Zombification became a subject of popular Western interest during the occupation of Haiti by the USA between 1915 and 1934.1 The current United Nations intervention has again focused attention on a phenomenon regarded as exotic and improbable by the media, yet one which is taken by most Haitians as empirically verifiable. Along with the related religious practice of vodu, it has been implausibly related by US physicians to the current epidemic of AIDS in Haiti.2 Haitian medical practitioners regard zombification as the consequence of poisoning; the clergy as the product of sorcery. Zombis are frequently recognised by the local population, and estimates of their number are of the order of up to a thousand new cases per year (L P Mars, personal communication).
Zombification is a crime under the Haitian Penal Code (Article 246) where it is considered as murder although the zombified individual is still alive. Local interpretation is that either by poisoning or sorcery, a young person suddenly and inexplicably becomes ill, is subsequently recognised by their family as dead, placed in a tomb, stolen by a boko (sorcerer) in the next few days, and secretly returned to life and activity but not to full awareness and agency.3 and 4 Haitians are seldom buried but placed in painted concrete family tombs above ground which in country areas are on family land next to the houses; they are vulnerable to being broken open.
Local beliefs about body, mind, and spirit recognise a separation of the corps cadavre (physical body) with its gwobon anj (animating principle) from the ti-bon anj (agency, awareness, and memory).3, 4 and 5 In zombification, the latter is retained by the sorcerer, usually in a fastened bottle or earthenware jar where it is known as the zombi astral. The boko either extracts it through sorcery which leaves the victim apparently dead, or else captures it after a natural death before it has gone too far from the body.1, 3 and 4 The animated body remains without will or agency as the zombi cadavre, which becomes the slave of the boko and works secretly on his land or is sold to another boko for the same purpose. It is induced to remain a slave only through chaining and beating, or through further poisoning and sorcery. This zombi cadavre is the zombie popularised by Western cinema and indeed is referred to locally by that name. In Haiti, the term is also used in metaphor to refer to extreme passivity and control by another.
Explanations as to how a zombi cadavre may escape back to its original family suggest that either the bottle containing the zombi astral breaks; or the boko inadvertently feeds his zombi salt; or he dies and the zombi is liberated by his family; or, rarely, the zombi may be released through divine intervention. On release, their mental and physical status remains the same, and they are vulnerable to recapture and continued enslavement; few bokos or doctors claim to be able to return a zombi cadavre to its original state of health and agency, and the matter is reserved for the mercy of Le Grand Maitre (the rather remote God recognised by vodu practitioners who is only invoked briefly through Latin prayers before they begin their ceremonies). Zombis are recognised by their fixed staring expression, their nasal intonation (which they share with manifestations of the spirits of the dead); by repeated, purposeless, and clumsy actions; and by limited and repetitive speech. They are regarded with commiseration; fear is reserved for the possibility of being zombified oneself. Concern that a