ZOMBIE BACTERIA PLOT TO KILL

Though many experts believe that bacterial infection is an unlikely source of zombiism, new research has found that deadly bacteria actually have conversations with their own kind to gauge the size of their infectious army inside your body.

The report in LiveScience explains that just one of the trillions of microscopic bacteria molecules inside the average human doesn’t have the size or strength to do any damage on its own.  But when many smart bacteria work as a team, they pose a real threat to the life of the larger host organism.

“When the numbers of, say, cholera bacteria increase to a certain critical level, watch out — those whispered conversations can turn into a coordinated attack as the mass of cholera bacteria begin to release toxin all at once.”

In the study of a potential zombie bacteria, this finding adds weight to the theory that the undead sickness could live inside the body for months, years, or even decades before it decides conditions are right to mount an assault.

It also means that after reanimation, those same molecular communications might be used to coordinate the functions of the walking dead, guiding everything from brain function to hunting behavior.