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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."
The title should read: Emerald Cockroach Wasps Create Zombie Cockroaches, Scientists Notice
"Scientists create Zombie Cockroaches"
Yes, and then we elect them. Wake me up when the system changes.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
I can't believe I remembered this.
Don't blame me I voted for zombie Lincoln.
In other news, large hordes of nerds are being arrested all over the planet while injecting nubile females with what appears to be insect venom. Natalie Portman in intensive care after a severe allergic reaction.
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Will Smith is not a zombie cockroach. He is a Scientologist. I may be splitting hairs here, but there is a difference.
Well, I for one am scared shitless of our new overlords.
This reminds me of a bit of research done by the psychofarmacology department of the University of Rotterdam in the late eighties. They set out to discover if there was any substance to the reports from aid-workers and missionaries in Africa that 'zombies' were for real. Several well-documented cases existed, involving 'dead' individuals returning to their old villages, months or years after their burial, with only hazy memories of what happenend during their time away. With some help from anthropologists it was discovered that the 'zombies' were in fact poisoned with a complex witch-doctor mix of herbs and toxins, the only really important ingredient of which was a powerful neurotoxin of animal origin, which inhibited active thought and the forming of memories. The individual who was doused in this contact-poison would fall into a death-like coma soon afterwards. Then it was simply a matter of digging the body up fast and whacking it over the head a few times to get the person to wake up. If that failed (hitting the proper dosage is a bitch), the grave could be closed, no one the wiser. The 'lucky' ones woke up as addled 'zombies', with no will of their own and able to hear and obey simple instructions and could be sold as slaves. The toxin was recreated by science (without the unnecessary extra ingredients) and proved quite powerful when tested on lab-rats. The neurotoxin blocked key neural pathways, but turned out to be easily 'washed away' by a sufficiently large dose of Na+ ions, such as when the victim ingested common table-salt. Having proved that it there was a scientific truth to the zombie-myth, but finding no easy synthesis of the neurotoxin nor any medical use, the research group moved on. I was given their report while in high-school by one member of the team, who thought it was funny that I was VERY interested in this voodoo-zombie story that she had mentioned to me. I should go look up that report or contact her again for further details, but perhaps someone who is more skilled in research and farmacology can just pull this out of a database for all of us?
But do they eat brains? I don't think so. So, technically they're not zombies.
If you find this amazing, check out the wikipedia article on these amazing parasites!
I remembered this, believe it or not. Almost 6 years to the day ;P Well, who's counting ;P
Any technology distinguishable from magic, is insufficiently advanced.
I read the title as "Scientologists create zombie cockroaches" and actually caught myself thinking, "Yeah, they've been working up to this for a while now."
This should serve once and for all to dispel the myth of a benevolent creator.
Alright, you've posted with your real account, which has no history of trolling, so either this is a genuine statement or you forgot to hit 'Post Anonymously'.
I have to ask, at the risk of being modded troll myself... why?
People have been doing worse things than this to one another for centuries, usually in the name of one God or another, and you are taking the existence of a zombie cockroach as your final proof of a Godless universe? Is there a justification here I'm just not seeing?
Dealing with lawyers would be a lot less tedious if they all looked like Casey Novak.