KILLERS INSIDE: Forbidden City

ZOMBIE VIRUS (PITHOVIRUS SIBERICUM)

Hello favorite readers, how are you all? This chapter is based on general knowledge on zombies and zombies virus since the story is based on zombies and I felt I should add some science explanation on it probably maybe because I'm curious and also a science student (smiles), I hope you all follow and learn more about it also the next chapters will be started with the zombies acoplypse and I hope you all get ready.

Do zombies breath air?

Zombies are dead, they don't need to breathe and growling would be a result of air passing through the vocal cords. In pretty much any mythology (at least where zombies are dead and not living 'Infected'), zombies do not need to breathe at all, they have been seen to operate just fine underwater for extended periods and zombies head are still animate (unless the brain is destroyed) even without lungs.

Are zombies attracted to sound?

From a writing perspective, As zombies does not see, zombies being attracted to noise allows for otherwise insignificant numbers of zombies to pose a threat via causing one of the survivors to stumble into something or get into some other noise making predicament thus drawing many more zombies and escalating the situation.

What do zombies smell like?

Rotten flesh and Sulfuric smell.

Zombies sounds include;

Moaning, Grumbling, Snarling, Roaring, Hissing, Growling and Grunting. There are raspy growls, hungry groans, screeching moans and furious snarls.

Can a human turn into a zombie?

If a person stub their toe, get an infection and die, they turn into a zombie, Unless the brain is damaged. if someone shoots the infected In the head and die. The person Is dead. A zombie bite kills because of infection or blood loss.

Can someone turn into a zombie from a zombie scratch?

Being bitten or scratched by the undead will turn a living person into a zombie overtime.

What's the zombie virus called?

Zombie virus (Pithovirus Sibericum)

FACTS: When French scientists Jean-Michel Claverie and Chantal Abergel learned that plants had been revived from 30,000 year old seeds found in squirrel hoards buried deep in the Siberian permafrost, they requested frost samples from the Russian team. They then tempted the samples with fresh amoeba, and were able to lure dormant viruses hiding in the frost into action. The viruses attacked the amoeba, bent them to their will, and started using them as replication laboratories.

When the scientists investigated, they discovered that, on the microscopic scale, the viruses were absolutely enormous. Over a micrometer in size, they are as large as many bacteria, even larger than some of the smallest known free-living eukaryotic cells, and are readily visible using standard microscopes. (The scientists named the virus Pithovirus sibericum because its shape resembled the ancient Greek wine jars called "pithos.")

Fortunately, it appears that the primary threat that this zombie virus poses is to the microscopic amoeba population. Nevertheless, the scientists have also discovered other large viruses, including Pandoraviruses and the "microbe mimicking" virus, or Mimivirus. Although the pathology of these viruses is as yet unknown, antibodies to giant viruses have been detected in humans – which means giant viruses can make us their hosts.

The genetic material of these viruses is unusual and overlaps known lifeforms to a very limited degree, which has the scientific community very intrigued about the possibilities for new discoveries. But only time will tell what else is lurking deep under the frost, waiting to be brought back from the dead...

NAME

Pithovirus Sibericum

ACTUAL SIZE

1.5 microns long, 500 nm in diameter

WHERE IT LIVES

Used to live in 30,000 year old Siberian permafrost

SYMPTOMS

Humans cannot be infected with zombie virus. Phew!

HISTORY

In 2000, scientists managed to revive 250 million year old bacteria from salt crystals found buried 560 meters below ground in New Mexico.

In 2012 Russian scientists discovered plant seeds that were preserved for 30,000 years in Siberian permafrost. These plant seeds were actually able to grow and blossom and are now considered the oldest revived plants!

A few years back scientists found pithovirus sibericum, aka zombie virus, in 32,000 year old soil, buried in Siberian permafrost. Pithovirus was found in the same Siberian permafrost the oldest revived plant was found in!

FASCINATING FACTS

The top 10 safest countries that could survive a zombie outbreak, based on geographic location, armed populace, population density, and military preparedness are as follows: 1) Australia, 2) Canada, 3) United States, 4) Russia, 5) Kazakhstan, 6) Bolivia, 7) Norway, 8) Finland, 9) Argentina, and 10) Sweden.

The word “zombie” is related to the African word, “nzambi”, which means god.

Josh Fischman interview with Scientific American

Can a person escape zombies if they smell like death?

The apocalypse is nigh—or it certainly seems that way. We live besieged by deadly viruses, terrorist threats and dunderheaded politicians. And because it is Halloween this week, we need to worry about zombies. Flesh-eating hordes of the walking dead, ever-growing, ever hungry, chasing us down alleys and forcing us to hide in dark basements.

How do you know zombies track you by smell?

According to Josh Fischman drawing on their bank of knowledge about zombies, which comes from pop culture, one thing that is constant is that zombies are brainless. They are awkward, they moan instead of talking, they repeatedly do stupid things. They have serious neurological deficiencies. Yet they try and eat us and not each other. How do they know we are not zombies? Well, you don’t smell right. You smell alive, not dead and decomposing.

What does dead and decomposing smell like?

There has been a lot of research in the nonfictional world about this. Scientists have helped crime scene investigators who look for hidden graves and trainers of dogs that search for human remains, and they have identified hundreds of compounds that come from rotting corpses.

What are some of these odorous chemicals?

Putrescine and cadaverine are two that are appropriately named. They form when amino acids break down and they smell kind of skunky, and sulfurous, and like human feces. Then there is dimethyl disulfide, which smells like rotting cabbage. A related compound, dimethyl trisulfide, smells like an open, festering wound. Another chemical produced by rotting flesh, skatole, also makes people think of feces when they get a whiff.

How can all this help us with zombies?

We want to disguise ourselves, blend in with the surroundings, like hunters who spray themselves with animal urine. Our surroundings, however, are the walking dead. We need to cover up our natural scent to fool this environment. We need to smell like zombies. There has been a successful clinical trial of this approach: In the first season of the TV show The Walking Dead the people covered themselves with zombie goo to escape. Fortunately, chemistry provides an easier solution.

Have they made a cologne?

Not yet. We’d need to bring in some cosmetic chemists, people who work on perfumes, to figure out how to bind these chemicals so they would last for awhile. Should it be oil-based? A lotion, maybe a spray? You’d probably want lots of options—maybe a cream for personal use and a spray to camouflage where you live, so your house would not smell so alive. Then we would test it with human-remains dogs. We do not want to be testing in the middle of a zombie apocalypse. We want to know we have something that works.

You really think this would work?

There are examples of it in nature. The corpse flower, for one. It has this giant bloom that smells like rot. The smell attracts insects that usually go for carrion, like flies and beetles, and the flower uses them to help spread its pollen.

About Josh Fischman

Josh Fischman is a senior editor at Scientific American who covers medicine, biology and science policy. He has written and edited about science and health for Discover, Science, Earth, and U.S. News & World Report.

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