How to Create your Own Zombie (Really??)

    Are you a fan of "The Walking Dead" series? Or the movie "World War Z?" How about the "Resident Evil" game? What would you do if these zombies that you are hooked on appear to be possibly true? What more if you could even create your own zombie?

                    

   Reading the first paragraph might make you believe that this article is possibly nonsense. How in the world can you bring a dead back to life and turn it into a monster that eat humans? There are many people who imagined a life during a zombie apocalypse including me, but we all know that this was just a fantasy. It scared me when I have read an article on "livescience.com". It was stated there that a number of respected medical experts and academic journal presented evidences that zombies are, in fact, real.

Photo from: truetv.com
(http://i.cdn.turner.com/trutv/trutv.com/graphics/photogallery/zombies/zombie-man2.jpg

      I think a lot of people are familiar with "voodoo dolls". These dolls originated from the practice or the religion called "vodou" (sometimes spelled as voodoo or vudun). It is a religion that is still practiced in places with a strong African heritage. Vodou priests called "bokor" were reported to create a powder that can turn a person into a zombie. They create a white powdery compound that is called "coupe poudre". Wade Davis, a Harvard ethnobotanist traveled to Haiti and found out that even though these bokor used different ingredients in creating a zombie powder, there were 5 constant animal ingredients present. A small tree frog, a new world toad, a polychaete worm, burned and ground-up human remains, and the most potent ingredient which is the pufferfish. 

    Pufferfish contains "tetrodotoxin" which is a deadly nerve toxin. Small amount of tetrodotoxin causes numbness and even euphoria. Euphoria is the state of being extremely excited or happy. At large doses, the toxin can bring the heart rate of a person to zero, but the person remains conscious and aware though the person cannot speak.

      The tetrodoxin might have been the basis of the zombie phenomenon. It was said that the bokor, exhumes a buried person and applies the second drug called the "jimsun weed (Datura stramonium)" which is believed to be essential for the revival of a dead person. 

Photo from:  brazilweirdnews.blogspot.com 
( https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwzZT0pFVWJFjF_mME_hGkqnxF4NiS75HxjVxKW0Vddovp-YZuibCE6n5HKvxb8C8Eo4j1Qr5hVCMBxWmAK3LOGyNiQPWM6yojmEo81-4h3PxPv7pKm4V1qx3gWTA731b6VaJAQ-VH0SU/s400/haiti00voodoo.jpg )

      There were reports that the "zombification" is true. A woman presumed dead and was buried reappeared after 3 years. Her tomb was found to be full of stones. There was also a report based on the publication of the American Chemical Society. A man named Clairvius Narcisse died in 1962 but has reappeared 18 years later and went to his sister. He told her that he was buried alive, dug up, and enslaved on a distant sugar plantation. Doctors and his families identified that the man who reappeared was really Clairvius. 

    It is really scary to think that the reports stated above were true. If a lot of people practiced the zombification process, then the zombie apocalypse that we fantasize about is coming closer to reality. It is up for you to believe whether zombies are true or not. Personally, I still don't believe in zombies for I haven't witnessed them but I also think that it is not impossible for there are also a lot of unbelievable discoveries that were found true. I hope that's not the case here. It chills my spine writing this article you know.

Blogpost by: Stephen T. Ko

Source:  

Lallanilla, Marc. "How to Make a Zombie (Seriously)" 24 Oct 2013. Web. From "http://www.livescience.com/40690-zombie-haiti-are-zombies-real.html"