Zombie Research News

Seems like zombies are just about everywhere these days. With the release of Brad Pitt’s summer blockbuster “World War Z” just around the corner, reanimated, cannibalistic corpses are once again in the news. Perhaps not coincidentally, a newly published study, “Zombies; Serious Threat or Delusional Bullshit”, undertaken by Dr. Wang Chung Chu of the State University of California at Rancho Cucamonga and Dr. Vern Angstvorstern of the Technical Institute of Basel, explores the scientific basis for carnivorous corpses and conjectures how such a plague might begin and eventually wipe out mankind. The nine and one-half page report, published in the June edition of The Journal of Armenian Homeopathic Practice, examines the biological basis for zombies and the epidemiology of a possible zombie outbreak.

Dr. Chu, who holds a PhD. in industrial psychology from Case Western Reserve University, first became interested in the potential for real life zombies when he was bitten by an apparently homeless man on Rue de Chartres in New Orleans while attending the Super Bowl in 2002, which was won by the Patriots on a late Adam Vinatieri field goal. Says Dr. Chu, “this guy was super grody and the bite hurt like hell. He didn’t break the skin because his few remaining teeth were pretty loose, but I had to ask myself what would have happened if this guy had been dead and ripped a big chunk out of my hand. I would have been in some serious trouble.” After this experience, Dr. Chu began to read all the scientific literature he could find on the living dead. “I couldn’t find any scientific literature on the living dead,” says Dr. Chu, “so I thought I should probably write some.”

With the aid of a grant from The National Science Foundation and UNESCO, Dr. Chu assembled his research team. Realizing he needed someone with a credible background in microbiology and cellular mechanics, he contacted Dr. Vern Angstvorstern, a chemist with extensive experience in the reflective optics of industrial coatings. “Dr. Angstvorstern was just the man we needed,” recalls Dr. Chu; “he was neurotically meticulous with an obsessive eye for detail and he owned a boat on Lake Lucerne.” Dr. Angstvorstern recalls their first conversation on the proposed study, “I had just completed a research project in which we had attempted to find a coating for the hulls of large vessels such as oil tankers which would prevent barnacles from attaching themselves. The research was largely unsuccessful and I really needed some money. The grant funding sounded interesting, so I joined the team.”

Chu and Angstvorstern began by assessing the supposedly fictional representations of zombies in popular culture. “We must have watched 200 zombie movies,” says Chu; “most of them were pretty shitty. The plots made no sense, the editing was incoherent and the cinematography was awful. Whoever thought this crap was marketable entertainment escapes me.” Angstvorstern echoed Chu’s sentiments, “I’ve seen Bangladeshi porn with better production values than most of this manure,” Nonetheless, after hundreds of hours of viewing, the team was able to establish the basic rules of reanimation of the dead and the forces that drive them to seek human flesh. “Your guess is as good as mine,” says Chu; “it’s either a virus or radiation or a curse or a chemical the military made or a medical experiment gone sadly off track.” As to the craving for human flesh, Angstvorstern puts it more succinctly; “well, some zombies seem to only want brains, while others will eat intestines and some even eat bugs and raccoons.”

As to whether there is any real chance that a zombie apocalypse will befall the world in the future, Chu and Angstvorstern are decidedly noncommittal. “There’s no way any of this shit could ever happen,” says Chu; “dead people can’t get up and walk around. That’s complete foolishness.” Adds Angstvorstern, “If you have ever tried to keep barnacles off a boat, you know what a challenge it can be, but human progress will defeat even the barnacle one day.” Despite remaining unanswered questions, the work of Chu and Angstvorstern has expanded the frontiers of scientific knowledge and provided a solid basis for audiences all over the world to judge the scientific accuracy of zombie films like World War Z. Angstvorstern sums it up, “the Dawn of the Dead remake was pretty good, but I didn’t get paid enough to watch most of that wretched mess.”