The brains take away the pain!

[mikeyb3883]

I just finished watching the terrifically awful movie, "The Return of the Living Dead." I hadn't seen it in a long time and I just got the urge to see it again, I think because they shoot a missile into the middle of Louisville to kill the zombies and I often times wish I could blow up many parts, if not all of Louisville. (I can't wait to get to

Comments

[14_6_10]

If the cause is viral, wouldn't the virus get burned up, too? If the cause is chemical, wouldn't burning it cause it to change? I suppose if parts of the chemical managed to escape the flames somehow it might happen. Or maybe if the chemical changes when it gets into the body and burning it changes it back to its original form. I don't know, I'm not Science Man. Anyone else with better insight?

[island_usurper]

It's possible the chemical wouldn't be affected much by being burned. Might just vaporise and become more dangerous. Hmm...viruses too, for that matter. Though that's less likely.

[steinygees]

Actually viruses are pretty hearty little gizmos. As I've just learned in my Microbial Pathogenesis section. They can survive the acidity of a person's stomach (think concentrated hydrochloric acid), they can survive being pooped out of birds, etc. If there was a zombie virus, it would probably have adapted a way to survive fire or other things used to kill zombies if it were an effective virus, otherwise it wouldn't be transmitted. The only thing is, technically, it probably couldn't reanimate the dead because it hijacks normal cell machinery to make more of itself... and if the thing's dead, the virus can't really do anything. It doesn't have sufficient energy to reanimate a dead cell, and if it did, it probably wouldn't use the cell to replicate, it'd probably be able to do it on its own... and therefore would no longer really be a virus.

If that makes sense... =P