Text: “How’s everyone holding up? It’s crazy out there. I’ve killed like fifteen zombies already. Why are they all carrying candy?”

Holidays Can Be Confusing is a post from: The Inquisitr

If you’ve ever spent a significant time around a baby, you probably recognize the similarities well.

Zombie Vs. Baby, A Guide is a post from: The Inquisitr

The Occupy Wall Street protests are going into their third week, as demonstrations spread to cities like Boston, Melbourne, Montreal and Prague.

Today, one of the demonstration’s designated spokespeople, Patrick Bruner, urged protestors to dress as zombies and engage in some banker mockery as protests stretch into day 16. A directive regarding the zombie initiative indicated:

Everyone come dressed as a corporate zombie! This means jacket and tie if possible, white face, fake blood, eating monopoly money, and doing a slow march, so when people come to work on Monday in this neighborhood they see us reflecting the metaphor of their actions. Tell your friends, Facebook it, Twitter it, and it can be MJ Thriller-style too! Create a different image than police brutality!

(Someone should really send those people some gold coins, at least.) Gawker points out that the zombie thing might be a bit casual for a protest with some serious goals, and suggested an opposite tactic:

You guys should all put on spotless tailored suits, slick back your hair, and march around Zuccotti Park in neat rows, shouting into cell phones about your investments. That would make a statement, and also shut up all the ”dirty stinky hippie”-haters, at least for a day or so.

The protests have been gaining traction as they wear on, with some high profile names lending support and visiting the site of the demonstrations. Susan Sarandon, Michael Moore, Dr. Cornell West and Russell Simmons have all visited, and on his Twitter account, Alec Baldwin tweeted the video of the protesters getting maced- calling the clip “unsettling” and adding that the NYPD has a “PR problem.” Van Jones also appeared on Real Time With Bill Maher last week, saying he was “so proud” of the young people standing up to be heard.

[Image]

Occupy Wall Street Goes Zombie Today is a post from: The Inquisitr

What has multiple legs, climbs trees, and turns to goo? Yep, zombie caterpillars. Scientists at Penn State have discovered a single gene that turns caterpillars from cute, crawling creatures, to brain dead zombies. 

The Daily Mail reports that caterpillars will typically climb a tree to feed. When they are done feeding they return to the ground to hide from predators. But zombie caterpillars, ones that have been infected by the baculovirus, are reprogrammed. Zombie caterpillars don’t return to the ground after feeding. Instead, the virus causes them to stay up in the tree, melts them, and turns them into goo. The melted caterpillar drips down onto the ground and infects others.

Researcher Kelli Hoover, writes:

“When (the caterpillars) are infected, as they get sicker they stay up in the trees and die up there. There are other genes in the virus that then make the caterpillar melt.

“So it becomes a pool of millions of virus particles that end up dropping onto the foliage below where it can infect other moths that eat those leaves.”

Hoover, who published his research in the journal Science, says that the gene that causes zombie caterpillars is called egt. The research team was able to successfully stop caterpillars from turning into zombies by removing the gene.

Hoover and his team infected two groups of caterpillars with the baculovirus, but removed the egt gene for one batch of caterpillars. The group that was denied the egt still died a gooey death, but they died on the floor and not up in the tree like the group that was given the zombie gene.

Scientists previously discovered a parasite that turns ants into zombies… so when is someone going to turn those tine zombies into a horror b-movie? The attack of the killer zombie caterpillars… I’d see that.

Run For Your Lives! Zombie Caterpillars Discovered by Scientists is a post from: The Inquisitr

Alright, maybe not zombies in the classical Walking Dead type of thing but researchers at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine have discovered that high fat diets increase the danger of your brain eating itself.

Of course the fact that your body will turn on itself and start eating its own fat and muscle is nothing new but scientists believed that the brain was immune from this kind of thing.

Published in the journal Cell Metabolism, the researchers found that in mice, neurons in the hypothalamus start to eat their own organelles (interior parts of a cell) and proteins when the animals are deprived of food. Now, the body cannibalizing itself isn’t something new, when the body is starving cells will start consuming pieces of themselves in a process known as autophagy, but until now, it was believed that the brain was resistant to this process.

The hypothalamus is a region of the brain, located right above the brain stem, that regulates functions like sleep, temperature, thirst and hunger. When the autophagy process was initiated it sets off a chain reaction by which fatty acids are released into the body that trigger the release of hunger signals that tell the brain it needs food.

When autophagy was purposely blocked by the researchers, those hunger signals were blocked. The researchers observed that the mice became thinner, ate less, and burned more energy. This finding might help researchers understand how a diet high in fat actually makes people more hungry. The fatty acids in the blood stream might be triggering extra autophagy that makes the person think they are hungry.

via Geekosystem

Dieting could turn you into zombies say scientists is a post from: The Inquisitr

The CDC would like you to know that in the event of a Zombie Apocalypse, their plan is not just to let everyone die off until their headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia is decimated in a scheduled self-destruction while a ragtag group of survivors flees screaming, barely outpacing the blast- as some pop-culture predictions might have you believe.

No, the agency that often takes a supporting role in Zombie Apocalypse literature and film has used the compelling trope to disseminate some basic facts about disaster preparedness. However, I would be remiss in my duty if I did not point out that the talking points, while perfectly salient in run of the mill disasters, actually lack in zombie-related applications.

For instance, the CDC urges families to designate two meeting points in case of emergency- one near home, such as the mailbox, and one a distance away, in case your home or neighborhood is compromised. All well and good in the event of an earthquake, but meeting on the stoop will do you no favors if your mom or wife is trying to make pate out of your brains. Having a list of first responders would be excellent in the case of a tornado or flood, but we all know that when Ataxic Neurodegenerative Satiety Deficiency Syndrome strikes, the cops and hospitals are among the first to join the ranks of the infected and should be vociferously avoided. “What’s that on your arm, Officer?” “Oh, a perp bit me earlier…”

The CDC assures the public that when Z-Day hits, they’ll dispatch teams to areas where outbreaks occur, but their list of Zombie Apocalypse essentials- water, food, medications, tools and first aid kits- is notably lacking. In the interim, concerned citizens can at least take training classes to comply with the “Cardio” rule.

CDC discloses zombie readiness plan is a post from: The Inquisitr

[lamebook]

Facebook as a grief coping mechanism is a post from: The Inquisitr

“The most essential item for our clients was acquiring the feeling of maximum security.”

Er, mission achieved by the looks of it. This concrete cuboid folds in upon itself to become completely sealed, with concrete slabs covering windows when they’re not in use. There’s also movable walls, a concrete perimeter fence, and just one entrance – via a drawbridge on the second floor.

More pics below, and more still at here:

[Via All That Is Interesting]

WELL ABOUT TIME: A zombie-proof house is a post from: The Inquisitr

Every where you turn we are being faced with zombies and now even the wonderful world of Lego and its minifig inhabitants are under attack; and by the looks of this bit of video that has somehow made it into The Inquisitr the minifigs are losing.

via Geeks are Sexy

Even Lego minifigs can’t survive the zombie horde is a post from: The Inquisitr

Just when you thought it was safe to go back out in the yard your worst nightmare has arrived. Picnics will never be the same.

Yes folks it is the time of the zombie ant.

Okay, all kidding aside this is just freaky but scientists have discovered that there really is an ant that for all intents and purposes becomes a zombie when infected with a specific type of fungus, or rather four new kinds of the Cordyceps fungus.

Now this isn’t really going to happen in your backyard unless of course your backyard happens to be in Brazil which is where this type of fungus is found.

Apparently once the fungi has infected the ant the insect stops acting like an ant and leave the colony whereupon they climb into trees which is where they die. Interestingly these ‘zombie’ ants are always attracted to the areas of a tree which is best suited to the fungi in order that it can reproduce.

As part of their armory in their quest to reproduce the fungi have some interesting, albeit a little unnerving, methods to infect other ants.

Of the four new species, two grow long, arrow-like spores which eject like missiles from the fungus, seeking to land on a passing ant. The other fungi propel shorter spores, which change shape in mid-air to become like boomerangs and land nearby. If these fail to land on an ant, the spores sprout stalks that can snag ants walking over them. Upon infecting the new ant, the cycle starts again.

via Wired

If that isn’t enough to have you running for an ax or some type of insect killer check out this video courtesy of Geekosystem

[Damn Cool Dept.] Zombie Ants. They have arrived. is a post from: The Inquisitr

The creepy and unsettling image making the rounds last week that purportedly depicted a zombie-like creature lurking in a Louisiana backwater was, surprise surprise, a viral marketing campaign for an upcoming game, Resistance 3.

As the story goes, a hunting stand out in the middle of nowhere had a digital camera set up, and the shots of the thing were captured before it smashed the camera up, leaving the memory card intact. The freaked out camera owner posted the pics to a gaming website, as you do when you encounter a pants-peeable cryptid in the middle of nowhere and it could have followed you home.

Playstation Lifestyle connected the “sighting” to this tweet from Insomniac Games about the upcoming release of Resistance 3:

Whoops… looks like one got out. If you see a Grim on the loose… please return to Insomniac Games, Burbank, CA: http://bit.ly/fqGoXX #fb

While the tale’s debunking hasn’t gotten much attention, the original story hit many mainstream media outlets, including several local affiliate news shows and Britain’s Daily Mail.

Creepy, unidentified Louisiana beast is viral videogame advert is a post from: The Inquisitr

Clearly, this dude was out walking his Montauk Monster when it got off the leash- it explains the anguished look.

The image and video below have captured the imagination of the internet this morning- some guys from Louisiana who have chosen to remain nameless submitted the pics from a deer hunting stand in Berwick. The camera was unmanned and broken, presumably by the unidentified thing, but the memory card was intact and the camera’s owners say the image was found on the card.

Local news describes the thing in the pic:

It looks like a cross between a human and an animal, with long slender appendages and glowing eyes.

The hunter says he just hopes it’s a vegetarian, if he runs into it in the woods again.

Bad attempt at viral internet fame? Zombie? Alien? Amy Winehouse? Do you have an explanation for the creepy creature supposedly caught on film in the woods in Louisiana?

[Video] What creepy, unidentified beast is stalking the woods in Louisiana? is a post from: The Inquisitr

According to a post on SocyBerty good old Charlie Sheen loves the AMC hit show The Walking Dead so much that he wanted to appear as a zombie in Season 2 of the show.

The publicist for Charlie Sheen also happens to represent the director of The Walking Dead, Jeffery DeMunn, and brought the two together on a deal that has seen Charlie clear his schedule for Two and a Half Men long enough to appear as an extra in the zombie show.

Upon hearing the news, Sheen was reportedly ecstatic, and has already cleared the shooting schedule with his Two and a Half Men duties.  Sheen’s involvement may very well lead to others in the acting community making brief cameos as zombies, and idea Walking Dead creator Andrew Lincoln reportedly welcomes.

No word yet on what specific episode Sheen will be appearing in.

Gee, I wonder what a drunk zombie looks like? Guess we’ll know soon enough.

Charlie Sheen to get his zombie on in Season 2 of The Walking Dead is a post from: The Inquisitr

If the Comic-Con trailer and extended trailer didn’t wet your whistle enough for this week’s premiere, check out this sneak peek of The Walking Dead‘s first episode, “Days Gone Bye.” (It’s the first few minutes, and it doesn’t give away too much.)

Official assessment? OMG, so excited!

[AMC]

[Video] Sneak peek of ‘The Walking Dead’ is a post from: The Inquisitr

It turns out that reports of the Sony Walkman’s demise have been greatly exaggerated.

There was much gnashing of teeth and wailing earlier this month when reports circulated that the first portable music player many of us owned, the Sony Walkman, was nearing the end of its life as an available consumer product. While they would live forever in our teenage memories, the idea that portable cassette players were no longer going to be sold saddened many, even if most people probably can’t recall the last time they’d spotted one in the wild.

It seems, however, that the Walkman will live to consume more copies of Jane’s Addiction’s Ritual de lo Habitual. (A title I lost three of to my dodgy Walkman’s voracious appetite in junior high.) Initial reports that the venerable Walkman had been retired were partly true- the device will be no longer sold… in Japan. The rest of the world, whoever might still be buying them, can still purchase Walkman cassette players wherever they might still be available for purchase.

A spokesman for Sony who refused to be identified as he is not authorized to speak on the matter said that there is a “small but consistent” demand for the device. One model is currently available in the US, and in addition to playing your “old cassette collection,” it can also pick up broadcasts from the National Weather Service for those who may not have yet discovered the internet.

Zombie Sony Walkman returns from dead, mostly is a post from: The Inquisitr

If you enjoy some serious mulit-player zombie killing action today is the day to save yourself some serious money ion one of the best zombie killing games out there – Left 4 Dead 2.

Valve, through their Steam store, is having a sale right now on the game and for $6.79 you not only get the original game but you also get the new DLC “The Sacrifice”. Not to mention the fact that for $20 you can also share the money saving zombie killing love with three of your friends.

So I only have one question for you … what are you waiting for?

Get yourself, and 3 friends, some zombie killing love – for $7 is a post from: The Inquisitr

I always swore I’d never set foot in school again but now I kind of want to.

The University of Maryland has added a course on zombies in pop culture, called “Zombiemania,” to this year’s curriculum. Professor Arnold Blumberg is teaching the class, covering 16 zombie films, and says the zombie genre is an important reflection of society in literature and film:

“Zombies are one of the most potent, direct reflections of what we’re thinking moment to moment in our culture,” Blumberg tells the class in explaining why they’re all here.

Blumberg seems to be pulling the old education trick of sliding serious academic material in under the guise of “fun” stuff:

“This hopefully is as dry and historical as we’ll get for the rest for the semester,” he says during a discourse on the misguided interpretation of West Indian rituals that allowed zombies into popular culture in the 1930s. “We’ll get the blood and guts flying up on the screen soon enough.”

Among the official course objectives, he lists “get you ready for a zombie apocalypse.”

The University of Baltimore isn’t the first college to hop on the zombie bandwagon- a Chicago area college has had a similar course in their catalog for years. Blumberg did not say if life experience getting high while watching Romero marathons was applicable to course study.

[Image]

University of Baltimore gets Zombie Lit class is a post from: The Inquisitr

Although the zombie genre is consistently pretty predictable, it’s also predictably awesome.

I pretty much decided I would be watching AMC’s upcoming miniseries The Walking Dead as soon as I learned it near-existed. Innovation is not something we look for in the zombie/apocalypse genre. It’s kind of like grown-up bedtime stories where you know the whole book back to front but you read it a thousand times anyway.

So, two things struck me upon watching the trailer from Comic-Con for The Walking Dead. One is that it looks very well made and movie like, and two, even in the trailer, it’s like you can’t not be distracted by tropes from previous zombie/apocalypse fare. In the first minute, there was “man wakes up to end times ravaged hospital” (28 Days Later) and “pilgrimage to Atlanta” (The Stand) for starters. We have the inevitable impetus for the character to learn first hand to avoid cities, and likely the defining moment of having to shoot some formerly adorable child point blank in the face. And cops, a general zombie genre theme.

Below, the brief and very compelling trailer. Are you planning to watch The Walking Dead? Have you tired of zombies, or do they deserve some of the pop-culture space currently occupied by vampires?

[VIDEO] Comic-Con trailer for ‘The Walking Dead’ hits web, are you going to watch? is a post from: The Inquisitr

We’re apparently all characters at the start of a zombie apocalypse story, because a news report is being bounced around the internet about a car full of zombies crashing in Oregon.

As the police say the people involved in the accident were “in costume” for a “party,” we can probably expect the reports of rioting and “civil unrest” to start popping up soon, too. The news report even refers to people at the scene being “confused” by the sight of a zombie car crash, so no need to get alarmed about the zombie sightings, folks:

A car full of people dressed as zombies crashed on Interstate 84 near downtown Portland on Friday, causing initial confusion by people who witnessed the crash.

Okay, initial reports blown off by media as misled spectators: check. Police say the car was swerving before it crashed all by itself. I’m no car-crash-ologist, but it sounds like someone inside may have been bitten:

Portland Police said the car was swerving in the eastbound lanes of the freeway just east of the Lloyd District just after 9:30 p.m. when it rolled over and crashed onto its top.

Five people in the car were taken to the hospital for “non life-threatening injuries” after the incident. Of course, if you’re technically not alive… Sgt. Greg Stewart spoke to press to placate the public:

Sgt. Greg Stewart said people who witnessed the crash initially thought the victims’ injuries were much more serious, because of the zombie costumes.

“We’re glad that everyone is alive, despite being ‘undead’,” Sgt. Stewart said, referring to the costumes.

Since it always starts this way, the outbreak doesn’t seem to have been contained:

While everyone in the car was taken to the hospital, Stewart said crews are investigating the possibility that more people were in the car at the time of the crash but fled the scene on foot.

Reports may or may not have proliferated that those present at the scene were said to have described the incident as “brainssss…. brains.”

[kgw via io9, img]

This is how it starts: car full of ‘zombies’ crashes outside Portland is a post from: The Inquisitr

It may be superficial, shallow and lacking pee-soaked subways, but LA has an edge here- although to be fully prepared…

[via Reddit]

LA v. NY, LA wins is a post from: The Inquisitr