tag:theconversation.com,2011:/global/topics/zombies-1062/articlesZombies – The Conversation2024-01-22T00:33:57Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2185912024-01-22T00:33:57Z2024-01-22T00:33:57ZMy favourite fictional character: Wintering’s grotesque widows reveal the ‘monstrous’ woman as wise and progressive<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/562103/original/file-20231128-15-9grq5p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=18%2C9%2C6211%2C4138&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Phil Robson/Unsplash</span></span></figcaption></figure><blockquote>
<p>A coven of faces. All women, all weathered. Old, middle-aged, younger; one teenager among them. […] They sat and breathed in each other’s stale exhalations. Breath like the grave. Jessica couldn’t help thinking that they were rotting inside. And now she was one of them. She had started to decompose.</p>
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<p>The widows are foul, unwashed, rank. They gather at an old farmstead with peeling wooden boards and “holes in the veranda you could put a fist though”. They give off a “urinous fug of sweat and unwashed clothing”. A woman in “a brown shapeless dress, sweat-stained at the armpits” grows long, dark hairs from her upper lip and neck. Their partners have all disappeared. And so has Jessica’s.</p>
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<p>These women are from Kris Kneen’s novel <a href="https://www.textpublishing.com.au/books/wintering">Wintering</a>, which includes one of my favourite depictions of monstrosity – a man–thylacine hybrid, a type of werewolf, that stalks remote southern Tasmania, turning people into monsters (in a recognisable <a href="https://www.euppublishing.com/doi/full/10.3366/gothic.2019.0003">gothic tradition</a>). </p>
<p>But it’s not the man–thylacine monster that has stayed with me all these years. It’s the second type of (metaphorical) monster, the widows, who speak to me far more profoundly.</p>
<p>Initially, the stories these widows tell – about monster hunting – are easy for the novel’s protagonist, Jessica, to reject. They’re the kind of ramblings she might hear from people she’d stand next to at the liquor store and joke about afterwards.</p>
<p>But there’s more to their monstrosity than the grotesque. The widows present as a collection of disparate elements — a Frankenstein’s creature composed of fragments. They are a collective aberration, in a society bent on advancing women who meet social expectations while rejecting those who do not. </p>
<h2>What monsters mean</h2>
<p>Monsters – millennia old – continue to populate our imaginations. The gothic novels of the 18th and 19th centuries, such as Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and Bram Stoker’s Dracula, have menaced shelves for hundreds of years.</p>
<p>More recently and closer to home, Lisa Fuller’s <a href="https://www.uqp.com.au/books/ghost-bird">Ghost Bird</a> and First Nations anthology <a href="https://www.uqp.com.au/books/this-all-come-back-now">This All Come Back Now</a> (edited by Mykaela Saunders) depict monsters from Indigenous perspectives, while novels such as Trent Jamieson’s <a href="https://www.textpublishing.com.au/books/day-boy">Day Boy</a>, which inventively reimagines the vampire, breathe new life into gothic monsters.</p>
<p>As American philosopher and cultural theorist <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/431308">Noel Carroll points out</a>, monsters are not just physically threatening – they threaten and challenge our ways of thinking, too. And in this way, Kneen’s mismatched collection of othered women prompts me to reflect on our assumptions about women and the social norms we’ve constructed for them.</p>
<h2>Monsters represent the ‘other’</h2>
<p>I’m fascinated by the many ways we interpret monsters. Dracula represents concerns about <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3827794?searchText=&searchUri=&ab_segments=&searchKey=&refreqid=fastly-default%3A46f3d5f5ebb26c8d1ece805ef054b7d5&seq=2">racial otherness and imperial decline</a>. No, it’s about fears of <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/337689065_Supernatural_surveillance_and_blood-borne_disease_in_Bram_Stoker%27s_Dracula_Reflections_on_mesmerism_and_HIV">AIDS infection and supernatural surveillance</a> – no, it’s about <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/40754849">homoerotic desire</a>. Zombies <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5749/j.ctt1pwt6zr">illuminate</a> rampant consumerism, slave labour and, by pushing them to their limits, the intricate workings of human communities. (If you’ve read or watched The Walking Dead, this last one will be familiar to you.) </p>
<p>These readings attempt to project and inscribe a specific cultural meaning, belonging to a particular time and place, onto a monstrous creature. “The monstrous body is pure culture,” writes Jeffrey Jerome Cohen, who <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5749/j.ctttsq4d">researches the cultural function of monsters</a>. It “exists only to be read”. And maybe this is why monsters preoccupy me.</p>
<p>Monsters often depict the so-called “other”: the outside, the beyond and all that we perceive as distant and distinct from us … but actually comes from within. Monsters, after all, always require a creator. They exist only because we design them, constructing them from our deepest fears.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Monsters exist because we design them – constructing them from our deepest fears.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Monsters reveal how societies define – and decide how to punish – difference and deviance. And by doing so, they also call into question <a href="https://www.routledge.com/The-Ashgate-Research-Companion-to-Monsters-and-the-Monstrous/Mittman-Dendle/p/book/9781472418012%20we%20base%20these%20definitions%20on">the very social structures</a> on which those decisions are based.</p>
<p>By creating monsters, <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/classic-readings-on-monster-theory/99074C8C5753F78E0B6F677F7C19ECBF">we police</a> social boundaries and define community norms. In Wintering, Jessica does this by rejecting the widows. Initially, she sees them as something other: something to be avoided, something lesser.</p>
<p>At the same time, though, Kneen’s widows subvert and challenge – even reappropriate – their categorisation as “other”. They are women who don’t meet conventional beauty standards, who flout social expectations. They are women who are older, single, who are sole parents. In short, they’re characters who <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-09-16/history-of-female-monsters-greek-mythology-australia-indonesia/102856324">transgress ideas of traditional womanhood</a> – a transgression traditionally punished by derision and exclusion. </p>
<p>But Jessica’s initial repulsion gradually shifts into acceptance and eventually respect. Later, she’ll view widow elder Marijam as a window onto her future self: </p>
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<p>[…] she felt dizzy, seeing her future staring into her eyes. And it wasn’t so bad really. Tough, solitary, self-sufficient. Wise? Maybe.</p>
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<em>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/bram-stokers-dracula-bats-garlic-disturbing-sexualities-and-a-declining-empire-186392">Bram Stoker's Dracula: bats, garlic, disturbing sexualities and a declining empire</a>
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<h2>Reframing ‘monstrous’ women as wise</h2>
<p>Literature is a powerful vehicle for revealing and naturalising different ways of thinking. I first read Wintering after having children, when I was experiencing a newfound respect for the wisdom and strength of my own mother – and by extension, all those who have carried, lost, terminated, delivered or nurtured babies. </p>
<p>It was a time when I really started to unpack monstrous tropes for what I think they are – particularly those of the female monster, so often <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/mono/10.4324/9780203820513/monstrous-feminine-barbara-creed">maligned for their reproductive experiences</a>. Maybe this is why Kneen’s creation spoke to me so profoundly (especially Marijam, the wise, wrinkled old lady, who’s quick on a walking stick and slick on a monster hunt).</p>
<p>Kneen’s reframing of the widows contributes to our ongoing process of dismantling internalised misogyny. It alerts me to a different view of those women society might have us trivialise or ignore. Certainly, this is the journey Jessica takes in the novel, eventually viewing herself as a member of the widows. </p>
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<p>“Well,” the old lady said, her smile, unbelievably, wrinkling her face even more. “We are glad you are with us, love.”</p>
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<p>Wintering’s widows leave me thinking about the women in my own life – about my own coven – and how they’re strong and wise in ways not always recognised or endorsed by the mainstream. </p>
<p>These covens have seen me through. They have decimated the idea we’re all write-offs to some degree, depending on how near or far we are from meeting “ideal” social expectations. They have shown me that together, we can be monstrously powerful. </p>
<p>And they’ve shown me it’s my job to pass this knowledge forward: the way Marijam passes hers to Jessica. </p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-clearings-investigation-of-the-family-invites-us-to-ask-whats-the-appeal-and-risk-of-crime-stories-based-on-real-events-206514">The Clearing's investigation of The Family invites us to ask: what's the appeal – and risk – of crime stories based on real events?</a>
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<h2>More work to do</h2>
<p>Unpicking harmful tropes, of course, is an unfinished task. We have more work to do, especially for women whose identities include further marginalisation surrounding disability, race, class and gender. Monsters are particularly well equipped to help us do this. </p>
<p>Wiradjuri writer Jeanine Leane, for instance, writes about <a href="https://sydneyreviewofbooks.com/review/saunders-this-all-come-back-now/">how Indigenous speculative fiction</a> – including fiction containing monsters – “unwrites settler control and knowing of the future and the present and the past” and re-establishes First Nations ways of knowing, being and telling.</p>
<p>There’s another, more literal, monster in Wintering – the man–thylacine werewolf – which skilfully picks at the threads of coercive control, domestic abuse and violence. It deserves its own analysis. </p>
<p>But it’s the monstrous widows who have remained with me, long after finishing the novel. They’ve invited me to reject the label of “monstrous” woman as an indication of shame or exclusion – and to reassign it as a symbol of progress.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/218591/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Martine Kropkowski does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Monsters reveal how societies define and punish deviance. Wintering’s widows make me think about the women I know who are strong and wise in ways neither recognised nor endorsed by the mainstream.Martine Kropkowski, PhD Candidate and Casual Academic, The University of QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2004282023-03-07T13:43:36Z2023-03-07T13:43:36ZPancakes won’t turn you into a zombie as in HBO’s ‘The Last of Us,’ but fungi in flour have been making people sick for a long time<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/513212/original/file-20230302-18-uldpy1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C1198%2C628&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A human fungal zombie from the TV show 'The Last of Us.'</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://imgix.bustle.com/uploads/image/2023/1/20/2c922756-5f33-430d-801b-995eec7dc0d1-the-last-of-us.jpg?w=1200&h=630&fit=crop&crop=faces&fm=jpg">Liane Hentscher/HBO</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the HBO series “<a href="https://www.hbo.com/the-last-of-us">The Last of Us</a>,” named after the popular video game of the same name, the flour supplies of the world are contaminated with a fungus called <em>Cordyceps</em>. When people eat pancakes or other foods made with that flour, the fungi grow inside their bodies and turn them into zombies. </p>
<p>As a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=5iZjEckAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">food scientist</a>, I study the effect of processing on the quality and safety of fruits and vegetables, including the flour used to make pancakes. While no one is going to turn into a zombie from eating pancakes in real life, flour is often contaminated with fungi that can produce mycotoxins that make people sick. Proper processing and cooking, however, can generally keep you safe. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">‘The Last of Us’ is premised on a pandemic that brings the world to an apocalyptic collapse.</span></figcaption>
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<h2>How common is fungi in flour?</h2>
<p>People have been eating bread made from wheat for <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-44846874">approximately 14,000 years</a> and cultivating wheat for <a href="https://sustainablefoodtrust.org/news-views/a-brief-history-of-wheat/">at least 10,000 years</a>. In 1882, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.7717%2Fpeerj.12346">drunken bread disease</a>” was first documented in Russia, where people reported dizziness, headache, trembling hands, confusion and vomiting after eating bread. Long before that, Chinese peasants were reporting that eating pinkish wheat – a key sign of infection with a mold called <em>Fusarium</em> – caused them to feel ill. Clearly, fungi have been making people sick for a long time.</p>
<p>Wheat, corn, rice and even fruits and vegetables can be infected with fungi as they grow in the field. In “The Last of Us,” an epidemiologist theorizes that climate change is causing the fungus to mutate so it can infect humans. The unfortunate reality is that fungi have become more of a problem in recent years as <a href="https://doi.org/10.3389/fcimb.2018.00060">warmer temperatures</a> encourage their growth. </p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/jfs.12422">A 2017 study</a> found that over 90% of wheat and corn flour samples in Washington, D.C., contained live fungi, with <em>Aspergillus</em> and <em>Fusarium</em> the predominant types of mold in wheat flour. <em>Fusarium</em> grows on wheat in the field and can cause a common agricultural plant disease called <a href="https://ahdb.org.uk/knowledge-library/fusarium-and-microdochium-in-cereals">fusarium head blight</a>, or scab. </p>
<p>Farmers use <a href="https://open.alberta.ca/publications/fusarium-head-blight-of-barley-and-wheat">multiple techniques</a> to reduce this devastating plant disease, including implementing crop rotation, using resistant varieties and fungicides and minimizing irrigation during flowering. After harvesting, they sort the grains to remove contaminated wheat before grinding them into flour. While sorting removes most of the contaminated wheat, small amounts of fungi can still make it into the flour.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/513399/original/file-20230303-29-cz1zd4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Pink wheat stalks infected with fusarium head blight" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/513399/original/file-20230303-29-cz1zd4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/513399/original/file-20230303-29-cz1zd4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/513399/original/file-20230303-29-cz1zd4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/513399/original/file-20230303-29-cz1zd4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/513399/original/file-20230303-29-cz1zd4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/513399/original/file-20230303-29-cz1zd4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/513399/original/file-20230303-29-cz1zd4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Wheat infected with fusarium head blight have a characteristic pink hue.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/fusarium-ear-blight-fusarium-head-blight-fhb-or-royalty-free-image/1358429685">Tomasz Klejdysz/iStock via Getty Images Plus</a></span>
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<h2>Killing microorganisms in flour</h2>
<p>The good news is that most fungi and other microorganisms <a href="https://www.ars.usda.gov/ARSUserFiles/60701000/FoodSafetyPublications/p328.pdf">die at 160-170 degrees Fahrenheit</a> (71-77 degrees Celsius). Pancakes are typically cooked to an internal temperature of <a href="https://www.lafujimama.com/oven-baked-pancake/">190-200 F</a> (88-93 C). Other cakes and breads are cooked to internal temperatures <a href="https://blog.thermoworks.com/bread/baked-good-doneness-temps/">anywhere from 180 to 210 degrees Fahrenheit</a> (82-99 C). So, unlike in “The Last of Us,” as long as you bake or fry your dough, you’ll have killed the fungi.</p>
<p>The problem comes when people eat the flour without cooking it first, such as by consuming raw cookie dough or “licking the bowl clean.” Both raw egg and raw flour can contain microorganisms that make people sick. The microorganisms that public health officials are most worried about are <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/foodsafety/communication/ecoli-and-food-safety.html"><em>E. coli</em></a> and <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/foodsafety/communication/salmonella-food.html"><em>Salmonella</em></a>, dangerous pathogens that can cause severe illness. </p>
<p>Most people don’t realize that the flour they buy at the store is raw flour that still contains live microorganisms. Flour is rarely commercially treated to be safe to eat raw because consumers almost always cook flour-based foods. While consumers can also attempt to heat-treat raw flour at home, <a href="https://ag.purdue.edu/stories/home-kitchen-heat-treated-flour-doesnt-protect-against-foodborne-illnesses-purdue-food-scientist-says/">this isn’t recommended</a> because the flour may not be spread thinly enough to kill all of the microorganisms.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/513408/original/file-20230303-20-m292l6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Microscopy image of _Aspergillus_" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/513408/original/file-20230303-20-m292l6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/513408/original/file-20230303-20-m292l6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/513408/original/file-20230303-20-m292l6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/513408/original/file-20230303-20-m292l6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/513408/original/file-20230303-20-m292l6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/513408/original/file-20230303-20-m292l6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/513408/original/file-20230303-20-m292l6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption"><em>Aspergillus</em> is one of the predominant molds found in wheat flour.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/aspergillus-under-the-light-microscopic-view-for-royalty-free-image/1332594729">tonaquatic/iStock via Getty Images Plus</a></span>
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<p>Some fungi and microorganisms can create spores, which are like seeds that help them survive adverse conditions. These spores can survive cooking, drying and freezing. There are even <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/bread-was-made-using-4500-year-old-egyptian-yeast-180972842/">4,500-year-old yeast spores</a> that have been reawakened and made into bread. These fungal spores rarely cause serious illness in people, except in those with <a href="https://doi.org/10.1101%2Fcshperspect.a019273">weakened immune systems</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.3390%2Fmicroorganisms5030037">Chemicals can be added to food</a> to stop fungal growth. These additives include sorbates, benzoates and propionates. However, you almost never see these additives in flour or pancake mix because fungi can’t grow in a dry powder. The fungi either grew on the wheat in the field or on the bread after it is baked. For that reason, you may see these additives in bread but not in a powdered mix.</p>
<h2>Mycotoxins</h2>
<p>The biggest risk from fungi is not that it will grow inside our bodies, but that it will grow on wheat or other foods and produce <a href="https://doi.org/10.5487%2FTR.2019.35.1.001">chemicals called mycotoxins</a> that can cause severe health problems. When wheat is harvested and ground into flour, mycotoxins can get mixed in. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, while normal cooking can kill the microorganisms, it <a href="https://doi.org/10.5487%2FTR.2019.35.1.001">doesn’t destroy the mycotoxins</a>. Eating mycotoxins can cause problems ranging from hallucinations to vomiting and diarrhea to cancer or death. Some of the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/jfs.12422">common mycotoxins</a> found in grain include aflatoxins, deoxynivalenol, ochratoxin A and fumonisin B.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/513410/original/file-20230303-22-5r5j15.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Moldy pastry on a plate" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/513410/original/file-20230303-22-5r5j15.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/513410/original/file-20230303-22-5r5j15.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/513410/original/file-20230303-22-5r5j15.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/513410/original/file-20230303-22-5r5j15.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/513410/original/file-20230303-22-5r5j15.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/513410/original/file-20230303-22-5r5j15.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/513410/original/file-20230303-22-5r5j15.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">It might be best to leave that moldy bread alone.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/moldy-inedible-spoiled-food-pasty-with-mold-in-a-royalty-free-image/1167797155">Yulia Naumenko/Moment via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>The oldest known case of mycotoxin poisoning is recorded as a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jafc.6b04494">disease called ergotism</a>. Ergotism was mentioned in the Old Testament and has been reported in Western Europe since A.D. 800. It has even been suggested that the <a href="https://www.vox.com/2015/10/29/9620542/salem-witch-trials-ergotism">Salem witch trials</a> were caused by an outbreak of ergotism that led its victims to hallucinate, though many have disputed this idea. Wheat is <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-12671-w">less likely</a> than other grains to have dangerous mycotoxins, which is why some have proposed that declining mortality in 18th-century Europe, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/s0025727300034116">especially in England</a>, was due to the switch from a rye-based diet to a wheat-based diet.</p>
<p>Ultimately, you don’t need to worry about eating those pancakes. Farmers use many techniques to minimize fungal growth and remove moldy grain, and the government keeps a close eye on mycotoxin levels during crop production and storage. Just make sure you cook your bakery products before eating, and don’t eat anything that has started to mold.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/200428/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sheryl Barringer does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Raw flour at the store still contains live microorganisms. And while cooking can kill the fungi, it doesn’t destroy any illness-causing mycotoxins that might be present.Sheryl Barringer, Professor of Food Science and Technology, The Ohio State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2002712023-02-26T23:55:22Z2023-02-26T23:55:22ZThis freaky slime mould from HBO’s The Last of Us isn’t a fungus at all – but it is a brainless predator<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/512123/original/file-20230224-16-zaem1b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C38%2C2823%2C2074&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Slime mould navigating a food grid.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Chris R. Reid/Macquarie University</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In HBO’s post-apocalyptic drama The Last of Us, human civilisation has fallen in the face of a fungal takeover triggered by climate change.</p>
<p>The show’s opening credits and creature designs are inspired by the slime mould <em>Physarum polycephalum</em>. But while the show’s “infected” (i.e. zombies) are meant to be victims of a fungal pandemic, slime moulds are not actually fungi at all.</p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/8SWhBsbxmpk?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Opening credits for The Last of Us. HBO Max/YouTube.</span></figcaption>
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<p>They are in fact much more ancient, and less closely related to fungi than even we are. Since scientists first tried to classify slime moulds, they have been wrongly grouped with plants, animals, and in particular, fungi. </p>
<p>This is because they typically occur in the same ecosystems as fungi, and because they produce structures to help spread their spores, much like their fungal cousins do. </p>
<p>Molecular methods for grouping lifeforms by comparing their DNA have helped us better understand slime moulds’ distinct heritage. Yet their exact place on the tree of life is still unclear. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/before-the-last-of-us-i-was-part-of-an-international-team-to-chart-the-threat-of-killer-fungi-this-is-what-we-found-199593">Before The Last of Us, I was part of an international team to chart the threat of killer fungi. This is what we found</a>
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<h2>A fierce predator</h2>
<p>Despite bearing a superficial similarity to fungi, there are many aspects of the slime mould’s biology that are strikingly unique. This yellow blob of goo may not look like much, but it is in fact a fierce predator of bacteria, yeasts and other microorganisms, including fungi. </p>
<p>Though they can grow quite large – up to several square metres across – each slime mould is a single cell, containing millions of nuclei and all the other complex machinery that lies inside cells like ours.</p>
<p>The slime mould’s “body” is a network of veins and tubes that can move at the rapid pace of up to five centimetres per hour to locate and capture their prey.</p>
<p>Inside the slime mould, a rich soup of cell components and food particles flows back and forth within the network. This flow transmits nutrients, chemical signals and information between different regions of the slime mould.</p>
<p>These rippling, sprawling movements are likely what makes slime mould so appealingly creepy to horror artists and filmmakers.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A prosthetic humanoid corpse against a brick wall, with orange bracket fungi growing from the skin and network-like yellow material spreading out from the body onto the wall." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/511608/original/file-20230222-18-uj248q.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/511608/original/file-20230222-18-uj248q.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511608/original/file-20230222-18-uj248q.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511608/original/file-20230222-18-uj248q.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511608/original/file-20230222-18-uj248q.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=605&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511608/original/file-20230222-18-uj248q.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=605&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511608/original/file-20230222-18-uj248q.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=605&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">In this behind the scenes shot, one of ‘the infected’ from HBO’s The Last of Us is plastered to the wall by what looks like giant slime moulds.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CnfLqb9KGYL/">@barriegower/Instagram</a></span>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-last-of-us-fungal-infections-really-can-kill-and-theyre-getting-more-dangerous-198184">The Last of Us: fungal infections really can kill – and they’re getting more dangerous</a>
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<h2>Zombie intelligence</h2>
<p>Slime mould physiology and anatomy is as alien as it is fascinating. But it’s their behaviour that separates them from their peers, and perhaps mirrors our own a little too closely for comfort. </p>
<p>Far from being simple cells moving blindly through the leaf litter, slime moulds can gather a huge amount of information from their environment, and use it to make smart decisions about where to move and look for food, much like the infected in The Last of Us, which operate as one large organism in search of prey. </p>
<p>So far, the slime mould has been shown to sense and move toward or away from <a href="https://www.microbiologyresearch.org/content/journal/micro/10.1099/00221287-108-1-17">carbohydrates</a>, proteins, <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0014482778904615">amino acids</a>, <a href="https://www.microbiologyresearch.org/content/journal/micro/10.1099/00221287-102-1-145">free nucleotides</a>, <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.4161/cib.28543">volatile organic chemicals</a>, <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0301462280870232">salts</a>, pH, light, humidity and <a href="https://europepmc.org/article/med/943401">temperature</a>, even sensing the direction of <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0309165187900142">gravity</a> and <a href="https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/6505318">magnetic fields</a>.</p>
<p>When a slime mould finds several food sources at the same time, it tries to cover each food with as much of itself as it can (to absorb it), without splitting into disconnected individuals. The most efficient way to do this is to have a single tube connecting the two foods along the shortest path between them. </p>
<p>Slime moulds have evolved over millions of years to become master network engineers. They are expert <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/35035159">maze-solvers</a>, and researchers have begun to build computer algorithms for the design of <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/full/10.1126/science.1177894">human train and telecommunication networks based on slime mould approaches</a>. </p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/HkM7FjmJ5dM?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The yellow blob of goo is a single network (and single cell) of Physarum polycephalum exploring the surface of an agar plate in search of food. The footage is sped up significantly (around 20x). Chris R. Reid/New Jersey Institute of Technology.</span></figcaption>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-brainless-slime-mould-that-remembers-where-its-been-10015">The brainless slime mould that remembers where it's been</a>
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<h2>No brain? No problem</h2>
<p>Slime moulds’ problem-solving abilities are all the more fascinating because the creature doesn’t have a brain or even a single neuron. Nevertheless, they show signs of memorisation and even learning – two things which traditionally were thought possible only in animals with brains.</p>
<p>As they move, slime moulds leave behind a trail of slime similar to mucous. This slime trail serves as an <a href="https://www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1073/pnas.1215037109">externalised memory</a> of areas it has explored in the past, which is very useful for solving mazes.</p>
<p>They can distinguish between their own trails, their neighbours’, and those of <a href="https://academic.oup.com/beheco/article/24/4/812/220539">other slime mould species</a>. They also use food signals left behind in the trails to <a href="https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rstb.2019.0470">judge their own chances of finding food in an area</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rspb.2016.0446">Researchers have also found</a> slime moulds can learn to ignore a substance they normally find repellent (such as quinine or caffeine) after prolonged exposure. Researchers call this basic form of learning “habituation”.</p>
<p>Amazingly, when a habituated slime mould fuses together with an untrained slime mould (oh yeah, they can do that), <a href="https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rspb.2016.2382">the learned behaviour is observed in the new combined individual</a>.</p>
<p>All this raises the (somewhat creepy) question: what other kinds of knowledge do slimy creatures pass between each other as they crawl beneath the forest floor?</p>
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<em>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/natures-traffic-engineers-have-come-up-with-many-simple-but-effective-solutions-94818">Nature's traffic engineers have come up with many simple but effective solutions</a>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/200271/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chris R. Reid receives funding from the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p>Slime moulds feature throughout HBO’s The Last of Us. While they aren’t a true fungus, they do have a lot in common with zombies.Chris R. Reid, ARC Future Fellow, Macquarie UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2002242023-02-23T21:32:26Z2023-02-23T21:32:26ZThe fungus zombies in ‘The Last of Us’ are fictional, but real fungi can infect people, and they’re becoming more resistant<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/511892/original/file-20230223-22-69v4bj.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=250%2C14%2C1667%2C1063&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">In the HBO series ‘The Last of Us,’ the parasitic fungus cordyeps mutates, and jumps from insects to humans and quickly spreads around the world, rendering its victims helpless to control their thoughts and actions.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(HBO)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Many of the people watching <a href="https://www.hbo.com/the-last-of-us"><em>The Last of Us</em></a> are likely there for the zombies.</p>
<p>I love the zombies too, but I’m really there for the fungus.</p>
<p>I’ve been studying fungi since my PhD work in the 1980s, and I grow more fascinated by these amazing organisms with every passing year.</p>
<p>In the HBO series and the <a href="https://www.playstation.com/en-ca/games/the-last-of-us-part-i/">video game that inspired it</a>, a parasitic fungus — a fictitious mutation of the <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/cordyceps-zombie-fungus-takes-over-ants">very real cordyceps</a> — jumps from insects to humans and quickly spreads around the world, rendering its victims helpless to control their thoughts and actions. Far-fetched fungal fear-mongering? It’s definitely fictional, but maybe not as preposterous as it might seem.</p>
<h2>Fascinating fungi</h2>
<p>From microscopic mould spores to <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/strange-but-true-largest-organism-is-fungus/">kilometres-long mycelium</a> under the forest floor, members of this distinct biological kingdom — neither plant nor animal — are incredible, and highly worthy of more attention.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/512053/original/file-20230223-16-mssl7i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="An ant with fungal growths growing from its head and abdomen, on a green leaf" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/512053/original/file-20230223-16-mssl7i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/512053/original/file-20230223-16-mssl7i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512053/original/file-20230223-16-mssl7i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512053/original/file-20230223-16-mssl7i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512053/original/file-20230223-16-mssl7i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512053/original/file-20230223-16-mssl7i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512053/original/file-20230223-16-mssl7i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">An ant infected with parasitic cordyceps fungus.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>Most of us may not think about them beyond the mushroom slices on our pizza, but fungi figure prominently in our everyday lives. Do you eat bread? Thank <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/yeast-fungus">the fungus we call yeast</a>. Do you enjoy beer, wine or whisky? Raise a glass to your <a href="https://doi.org/10.3390%2Fmicroorganisms8081142">fungal friends responsible for the fermentation</a> that brings them to life.</p>
<p>Every time a round of antibiotics helps you recover from some form of infection, remember that <a href="https://www.acs.org/education/whatischemistry/landmarks/flemingpenicillin.html">a mould gave us the compounds that became penicillin</a> and its many derivatives.</p>
<p>Fungi are incredible chemists. They make many compounds that humans cannot easily replicate in the lab. Some make compounds that can affect behaviour. </p>
<p>Look at <a href="https://www.camh.ca/en/health-info/mental-illness-and-addiction-index/lsd">lysergic acid diethylamide</a>, commonly known as LSD, or “acid.” Its well-known psychedelic effects originate from a grain mould. Similarly, “magic” mushrooms are the source of <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/substance-use/controlled-illegal-drugs/magic-mushrooms.html">psilocybin</a>. LSD and magic mushrooms are both illegal recreational drugs but are also under study for their therapeutic value.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/albertas-new-policy-on-psychedelic-drug-treatment-for-mental-illness-will-canada-lead-the-psychedelic-renaissance-195061">Alberta’s new policy on psychedelic drug treatment for mental illness: Will Canada lead the psychedelic renaissance?</a>
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<h2>Fungal infections</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/511900/original/file-20230223-2553-wdgm71.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Pink flower-like blooms on translucent stems" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/511900/original/file-20230223-2553-wdgm71.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/511900/original/file-20230223-2553-wdgm71.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511900/original/file-20230223-2553-wdgm71.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511900/original/file-20230223-2553-wdgm71.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511900/original/file-20230223-2553-wdgm71.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=711&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511900/original/file-20230223-2553-wdgm71.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=711&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511900/original/file-20230223-2553-wdgm71.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=711&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Microscopic image of the fungus Aspergillus fumigatus.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(CDC)</span></span>
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<p>Fungi also have an aggressive side. Apart from breaking down dead plants and animals, some forms attack living creatures, including humans. Whole pharmacy shelves are stocked with remedies for <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/healthywater/hygiene/disease/athletes_foot.html">athlete’s foot</a>, <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/fungal/diseases/candidiasis/index.html">yeast infections</a> and <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/fungal/diseases/ringworm/treatment.html">jock itch</a>, all of them nasty fungal infections. Even <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaad.2004.10.211">dandruff is caused by a fungus</a>.</p>
<p>Yet while we can access an array of medications to cure bacterial infections such as pneumonia and strep throat, there are only <a href="https://www.healthline.com/health/fungal-infection/antifungal">four known compounds</a> available to rid ourselves of fungal infections. Three are available in the various over-the-counter powders, sprays and ointments we use to treat common fungal infections. </p>
<p>The fourth and newest class, echinocandins, is reserved for hospital settings, where the consequences of fungal infections can be deadly.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.thewrightlab.com/">My team’s research lab</a> at McMaster is part of the university’s broader <a href="https://globalnexus.mcmaster.ca/">Global Nexus for Pandemics and Biological Threats</a>, and also works with the global research organization CIFAR’s <a href="https://cifar.ca/research-programs/fungal-kingdom/">Fungal Kingdom: Threats and Opportunities</a> program. </p>
<p>We are working to find ways to limit the potential harm humans face from fungal infections. We also seek to understand how we can use their abundant and as-yet barely tapped potential to make new antibiotics <a href="https://theconversation.com/antibiotic-resistant-infections-could-destroy-our-way-of-life-new-report-126670">before we lose the waning power of penicillin and its derivatives</a>.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/future-infectious-diseases-recent-history-shows-we-can-never-again-be-complacent-about-pathogens-177746">Future infectious diseases: Recent history shows we can never again be complacent about pathogens</a>
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<h2>Fungi adapt and evolve</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/512055/original/file-20230223-28-etvxfk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Blue organisms growing from a translucent stalk" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/512055/original/file-20230223-28-etvxfk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/512055/original/file-20230223-28-etvxfk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512055/original/file-20230223-28-etvxfk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512055/original/file-20230223-28-etvxfk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512055/original/file-20230223-28-etvxfk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=520&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512055/original/file-20230223-28-etvxfk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=520&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512055/original/file-20230223-28-etvxfk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=520&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Microscopic image of the fungal organism, Epidermophyton floccosum, which is a cause of infections such as athlete’s foot and jock itch.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(CDC/Libero Ajello)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>I was first attracted to fungus research as a student about to begin my PhD studies about 35 years ago. At that time, <a href="https://www.hiv.gov/hiv-basics/overview/history/hiv-and-aids-timeline">HIV-AIDS was still emerging</a>, shutting down the immune systems of otherwise healthy people, leaving them vulnerable to opportunistic infections, <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/fungal/infections/hiv-aids.html">including fungal infections</a>.</p>
<p>I wanted to understand more about how fungi worked.</p>
<p>Like bacteria and viruses, fungi are always evolving and adapting, <a href="https://www.who.int/news/item/25-10-2022-who-releases-first-ever-list-of-health-threatening-fungi">finding ways to survive under hostile conditions</a>. We are seeing many forms of fungi adapting to live at ever-higher temperatures, including body temperature, which has long been humans’ first line of defence.</p>
<p>We are also seeing growing antimicrobial resistance among some causes of fungal infection, yeasts such as <a href="https://cifar.ca/cifarnews/2019/04/30/tackling-a-global-superbug/">Candida auris</a> and moulds such as <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/fungal/diseases/aspergillosis/index.html">Aspergillus</a>, both of which can be causes of in-hospital infections.</p>
<h2>Potential for a fungal pandemic</h2>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/E5tSO9aR2Ds?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">In the HBO Max drama ‘The Last of Us,’ a fungal infection turns its victims into fungus-sprouting zombies.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>While <em>The Last of Us</em> is a strictly dramatic projection of what might happen in a deadly fungal outbreak, it is at least based, if not in reality, in logic.</p>
<p>Fungi are able to influence perceptions and behaviour through chemistry. Are they getting closer? You bet. Do they make zombies? Not that we know of, but the thought is darkly entertaining, and that keeps me watching.</p>
<p>The show does do an excellent service by reminding us that we need to adapt to stay ahead of the possibility of a fungal pandemic.</p>
<p>In the same way the movie <em><a href="https://mediashift.org/2017/04/reading-presidents-men-age-trump/">All The President’s Men</a></em> once inspired a generation of journalists, and <em><a href="https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2012/10/the-paper-chase-at-40/">The Paper Chase</a></em> later channelled many eager students toward law school, I am hopeful that <em>The Last of Us</em> may trigger new interest in studying fungi.</p>
<p>The more minds we can focus on unlocking the true magic in mushrooms, the better off we’ll all be.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/200224/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gerry Wright receives funding for antifungal research from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the Canadian Institute for the Advanced Research and is a consultant for Kapoose Creek, a Canadian biotechnology firm.</span></em></p>While ‘The Last of Us’ is a dramatic projection of a deadly fungal outbreak, it is based, if not in reality, in logic. And it’s a reminder that fungal infections are growing more resistant.Gerry Wright, Professor of Biochemistry and Biomedical Sciences, McMaster UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1995932023-02-16T19:05:16Z2023-02-16T19:05:16ZBefore The Last of Us, I was part of an international team to chart the threat of killer fungi. This is what we found<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/510490/original/file-20230216-26-fl8d1b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=2%2C0%2C1579%2C1055&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://pressroom.warnermedia.com/us/image/tlu106120221lh0106">Liane Hentscher/HBO</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Fungal infections have received a frenzy of attention thanks to the popularity of HBO’s <a href="https://www.hbo.com/the-last-of-us">The Last of Us</a>. The show depicts a fungal pandemic caused by the real-life zombie-ant fungus, <em><a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/cordyceps-zombie-fungus-takes-over-ants">Ophiocordyceps unilateralis</a></em>. It imagines the outcome of society’s collapse and a brutal approach to maintaining public health.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1625837601482502145"}"></div></p>
<p>But in (real-life) laboratories, hospitals and public health units around the world, researchers have been warning about the rise of potentially deadly fungal infections for years. </p>
<p>With few drugs to treat major fungal infections, and no vaccines on the horizon, the potential harm caused by fungal infections have raised alarms at the highest levels of public health. </p>
<p>I was part of a large international team of researchers commissioned by the <a href="https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789240060241">World Health Organization</a> (WHO) to understand which fungal pathogens we most needed to research and which posed the greatest public health threat. This is what its report found. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-last-of-us-fungal-infections-really-can-kill-and-theyre-getting-more-dangerous-198184">The Last of Us: fungal infections really can kill – and they’re getting more dangerous</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Fungi back in the spotlight</h2>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/uLtkt8BonwM?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The Last of Us reminds us how deadly some fungi can be.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Before The Last of Us, many people thought “fungus” meant mushrooms or something mouldy in the compost heap. If they thought of fungi in relation to health, they thought of <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/healthywater/hygiene/disease/athletes_foot.html">athlete’s foot</a> or <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-why-do-we-get-fungal-nail-infections-and-how-can-we-treat-them-75212">toenail infections</a> – familiar, but not frightening. </p>
<p>However, fungi do cause serious infections, especially in people with other health conditions. People living with cancer, HIV, or diabetes are especially at risk of these infections, but they can also strike those who have had major surgery, ended up in an intensive care unit, or who have experienced another serious infection. This is because their immune system is weakened or distracted, opening up a space for “opportunistic infections”.</p>
<p>We’ve seen this in India where black mould infections (<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-mucormycosis-the-fungal-infection-affecting-covid-patients-in-india-160707">mucormycosis</a>) complicated cases of COVID, resulting in <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-57897682">thousands of deaths</a>.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-mucormycosis-the-fungal-infection-affecting-covid-patients-in-india-160707">What is mucormycosis, the fungal infection affecting COVID patients in India?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>A threat and becoming more so</h2>
<p>Well before The Last of Us, health authorities had been starting to take notice of serious fungal infections.</p>
<p>In 2019 the US Centers for Disease Control <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/drugresistance/biggest-threats.html">designated</a> the deadly yeast <em><a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-is-candida-auris-and-who-is-at-risk-115293">Candida auris</a></em> – which appeared out of nowhere <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1348-0421.2008.00083.x">in 2009</a> – as an “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/06/health/drug-resistant-candida-auris.html">urgent threat</a>” because of its resistance to many (and sometimes all) known antifungal drugs.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/510271/original/file-20230215-1870-uc209n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Candida auras" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/510271/original/file-20230215-1870-uc209n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/510271/original/file-20230215-1870-uc209n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510271/original/file-20230215-1870-uc209n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510271/original/file-20230215-1870-uc209n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510271/original/file-20230215-1870-uc209n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510271/original/file-20230215-1870-uc209n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510271/original/file-20230215-1870-uc209n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"><em>Candida auris</em> is an ‘urgent threat’ as it’s resistant to most antifungal drugs.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/candida-auris-fungi-emerging-multidrug-resistant-1164101620">Kateryna Kon/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-is-candida-auris-and-who-is-at-risk-115293">Explainer: what is Candida auris and who is at risk?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>A drug-resistant strain of <em>Aspergillus fumigatus</em>, which arose from <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/11/when-tulips-kill/574489/">overuse of antifungal chemicals</a> in agriculture, made the “watch” list.</p>
<p>New and increasingly drug-resistant pathogens like these are one challenge to public health. Another is the increasing number of people at risk of these infections. </p>
<p>Rich countries are delivering ever-more sophisticated health care, resulting in more people vulnerable to serious fungal infections. Chemotherapy, organ transplants, major surgery, extra healthy years lived with diabetes all give opportunities for fungi to take hold. </p>
<p>Although the risk factors in lower income settings are different, the numbers tell the same story – rates of serious fungal infections <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/fungal-infections-more-common-as-ranges-expand-rcna58258">globally</a> <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0740257019300425?via%3Dihub">are rising</a>.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-the-cdc-warns-antibiotic-resistant-fungal-infections-are-an-urgent-health-threat-127095">Why the CDC warns antibiotic-resistant fungal infections are an urgent health threat</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Then we worked with the WHO</h2>
<p>I was part of a large team of international researchers commissioned by the WHO to analyse the past ten years of research on fungal pathogens.</p>
<p>We conducted a worldwide survey of fungal disease experts to understand which pathogens were most in need of research and which posed the greatest public health threat. The WHO <a href="https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789240060241">published the results</a> in a report released last year.</p>
<p>They highlighted four critical priority pathogens: </p>
<ul>
<li><p><em>Candida auris</em>, which is resistant to most antifungals and is a problem for vulnerable patients in hospitals</p></li>
<li><p><em>Aspergillus fumigatus</em>, which mainly affects the lungs. Infections can be deadly, even more so when drug-resistant strains are involved </p></li>
<li><p><em>Candida albicans</em>, which can cause invasive infections, typically in vulnerable patients</p></li>
<li><p><em>Cryptococcus neoformans</em>, which can infect the brain, especially in immunocompromised people. This is especially the case in people with HIV, where it’s a leading killer.</p></li>
</ul>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/510272/original/file-20230215-3916-slyox6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Aspergillus fumigatus" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/510272/original/file-20230215-3916-slyox6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/510272/original/file-20230215-3916-slyox6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510272/original/file-20230215-3916-slyox6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510272/original/file-20230215-3916-slyox6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510272/original/file-20230215-3916-slyox6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510272/original/file-20230215-3916-slyox6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510272/original/file-20230215-3916-slyox6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"><em>Aspergillus fumigatus</em> mainly affects the lungs.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/fungi-aspergillus-black-mold-that-produce-2128528781">Kateryna Kon/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The WHO report calls for enhanced surveillance, a focus on research and development, and improvements in public health interventions, such as improved prophylaxis (preventive treatments) or infection prevention strategies.</p>
<p>Viewers of The Last of Us will understand why these are so important. We need surveillance so we know where threats are coming from before they arrive, otherwise we cannot prepare.</p>
<p>We need more research and development to develop vaccines and new treatments.</p>
<p>So far, we have failed to develop any <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41541-021-00294-8">anti-fungal vaccines</a> and there is no chance we could produce and distribute one as we did for COVID.</p>
<p>Although some new anti-fungals have become available, the range is still too small, and some strains of fungi are resistant to all available drugs.</p>
<p>Developing vaccines and drugs is hard because fungal cells are similar to human ones. So basic laboratory research is vital to identify ways we can kill fungal cells without harming our own.</p>
<p>Without giving any spoilers, it’s safe to say the public health interventions in The Last of Us are pretty extreme. So research on how to contain and control fungal pathogens is also vital to avoid such draconian and ineffective measures.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/curious-kids-are-zombies-real-79347">Curious Kids: Are zombies real?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Are fungal pandemics possible?</h2>
<p>The fungal frog plague, <a href="https://theconversation.com/deadly-frog-fungus-has-wiped-out-90-species-and-threatens-hundreds-more-113846">chytrid disease</a>, has killed countless amphibians. Researchers say it has caused the <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aav0379">greatest loss of biodiversity</a> from a single disease ever recorded. </p>
<p>Is a fungal zombie apocalypse possible? Not for humans. The fungus in The Last of Us evolved over millennia to infect a specific ant species and influence its behaviour. There is no realistic prospect of this organism crossing over into humans and controlling us. </p>
<p>However, we do face very real threats from fungi if we don’t work hard to understand them better – threats to our health, to biodiversity, even food security. By taking action now, we can prevent a potential public health crisis.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/199593/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Justin Beardsley receives funding from the NHMRC and has received honoraria from Gilead for hosting education meetings. He was part of a WHO-commissioned study group, but any views expressed here are his alone and do not represent the official views of the WHO. </span></em></p>Dangerous fungal infections are on the rise globally. But we have few drugs that work and no prospect of anti-fungal vaccines any time soon.Justin Beardsley, Associate Professor in Infectious Diseases, Sydney Institute for Infectious Diseases Westmead Clinical School, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1995242023-02-14T21:54:26Z2023-02-14T21:54:26ZBeing declared dead when you’re still alive – why these very rare events occur<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/509852/original/file-20230213-25-e47wib.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C4050%2C2552&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/slightly-open-empty-wooden-coffin-hand-1181856556">Inked Pixels/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>An 82-year-old woman who was recently pronounced dead at a New York nursing home was later <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2023/02/07/us/new-york-woman-found-alive-funeral-home/index.html">discovered to be alive</a> by funeral home staff. This follows a similar incident in Iowa where a 66-year-old woman with early-onset dementia was declared dead by a nurse, only to be found <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/05/us/iowa-presumed-dead-body-bag-alzheimers.html">gasping for air</a> when funeral home staff unzipped the body bag.</p>
<p>Fortunately, these events are very rare. But fear of them is visceral, which might explain an <a href="https://www.usni.org/press/books/naval-ceremonies-customs-and-traditions-6th-edition">old naval custom</a>. When sewing the canvas shroud for a dead sailor, the sailmaker would take the last stitch through the nose of the deceased. Having a sailcloth needle through the nose was presumed to be a potent enough stimulus to wake any sailor who was actually still alive.</p>
<p>Confirmation of death these days is thankfully a lot less brutal. </p>
<p>An absence of heart and breath sounds over a period of time, the presence of fixed, dilated pupils, and a failure to respond to any stimulus should mean that the person is deceased. All doctors are taught how to do this and all are aware of their duties. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, there have been instances where death has been confirmed by this process, yet the patient has shown signs of life afterwards. </p>
<p>Over the years, I have seen this happen. One day in a hospital, a colleague pronounced an elderly woman dead, but a short while later, she started breathing again and her pulse was briefly restored. </p>
<p>In another unforgettable incident, the medical emergency team was summoned with the words: “Cardiac arrest. Mortuary. This is not a joke!” A woman had taken an overdose of barbiturates prescribed for her epilepsy. She had been seen by a general practitioner who certified that she was dead. </p>
<p>But on arrival at the mortuary, one of her legs was seen to be twitching. Excruciating embarrassment all round. And if I recall correctly, she recovered.</p>
<p>Failure to perform the confirmation-of-death procedure properly explains some instances of people being incorrectly declared dead. A cursory examination while distracted could easily lead to a failure to hear heart sounds and spot shallow, infrequent breaths. It pays to be thorough. However, some drugs we give patients can make the task harder. </p>
<h2>Drugs, toxins and cold water</h2>
<p>Sedating drugs are thought in some way to protect the brain from damage and this is made use of in anaesthesia for major surgical procedures, particularly if it is necessary to stop the circulation for a time. </p>
<p>Less usefully, and with the potential to cause alarm, an overdose of sedatives reduces responsiveness and depresses the breathing and circulation, leading to the impression of death while protecting the brain from hypoxia (oxygen starvation). Later on, as the drug is cleared from the body, the person may wake up. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/man-wakes-up-funeral-open-casket-mourners-family-members-watson-franklin-mandujano-doroteo-peru-tingo-maria-a8021851.html">Diazepam</a> (brand name Valium), <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/woman-mistakenly-pronounced-dead-breathing-body-bag-funeral/story?id=96871056">alprazolam</a> (brand name Xanax) have both caused people to mistakenly be declared dead.</p>
<p>Certain toxins may have a similar effect. Voodoo practitioners called Bokors apparently <a href="https://sites.duke.edu/ginalisgh323/zombification-process/">administered powders to victims</a> to make them seem dead. These powders reportedly contained small doses of tetrodotoxin from puffer fish to paralyse the victim, who was then presumably abducted before burial and enslaved. Could neurological damage from the “zombification” process account for the popular image of the zombie?</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A puffer fish" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/510011/original/file-20230214-14-ljolaz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/510011/original/file-20230214-14-ljolaz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510011/original/file-20230214-14-ljolaz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510011/original/file-20230214-14-ljolaz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510011/original/file-20230214-14-ljolaz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510011/original/file-20230214-14-ljolaz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510011/original/file-20230214-14-ljolaz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Toxins from the puffer fish might be used to create zombies.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/puffer-fish-389687713">Aries Sutanto/Shutterstock</a></span>
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<p>Immersion in cold water can also lead to the illusion of death because of its effect on slowing the heart rate. Survival after <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S073646791930424X?casa_token=fWpL51aDu6wAAAAA:Mr0x81LUUog0hT-HSRneimKcRlYW6DHK4nUBODKqOao_L82J8bLIMHszMNwR9qVd69GkuCh8zqsb">considerable periods of time</a> in the water is well documented.</p>
<p>In emergency medicine, it has long been taught that a drowned patient is not proven dead until they have been warmed up. Good neurological recovery has been reported after periods of cold water immersion of <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/aor.13818?casa_token=ukJcJCgH-n4AAAAA%3Annr3Tgd4LuJ8Ky-l_1UGB_IxLHuU-odWkM1DKgJEhXw3IYXP8_DrpfNxr2eIL8KJJ3PSRX_JUltjpfsLTg">up to 70 minutes</a></p>
<p>Fainting might also deceive the certifying doctor. Activation of the vagus nerve (the longest cranial nerve in the body) occurs during fainting, slowing the heart and reducing blood pressure. </p>
<p>This might account for <a href="https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/dead-teen-wakes-screaming-inside-6315389">a very sad case</a> reported from Honduras. A pregnant teenager was thought to have died from shock after hearing gunfire in her neighbourhood. She was heard screaming within her tomb a day after her funeral. It is quite possible that she had woken up after a prolonged faint.</p>
<p>Many cases seem to originate outside of Europe. Geographical variation in medical confirmation of death procedure may explain this. Perhaps errors arise when people are less likely to be able to afford the costs of a doctor. </p>
<p>Whatever the cause, these cases appear in the media because they are sensational and attract lurid attention, but ultimately they are very rare.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/199524/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stephen Hughes does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Death is a process, not an event and some steps appear to be reversible.Stephen Hughes, Senior Lecturer in Medicine, Anglia Ruskin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1908212022-09-28T19:50:00Z2022-09-28T19:50:00ZWe can turn to popular culture for lessons about how to live with COVID-19 as endemic<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/486681/original/file-20220927-16-7mqf23.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C32%2C5350%2C2971&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">An endemic means that COVID-19 is still around, but it no longer disrupts everyday life.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/we-can-turn-to-popular-culture-for-lessons-about-how-to-live-with-covid-19-as-endemic" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>In 2021, conversations began on <a href="https://www.publichealthontario.ca/-/media/documents/ncov/phm/2021/12/covid-19-what-does-endemic-mean.pdf?sc_lang=en">whether the COVID-19 pandemic will, or even can, end</a>. As a literary and cultural theorist, I started looking for shifts in stories about pandemics and contagion. It turns out that several stories also question how and when a pandemic becomes endemic.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/covid-will-likely-shift-from-pandemic-to-endemic-but-what-does-that-mean-167782">COVID will likely shift from pandemic to endemic — but what does that mean?</a>
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<p>The 2020 film <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8850222/"><em>Peninsula</em></a>, a sequel to the Korean zombie film, <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5700672/"><em>Train to Busan</em></a>, ends with a group of survivors rescued and transported to a zombie-free Hong Kong. In it, Jooni (played by <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm6903064/">Re Lee</a>) spent her formative years living through the zombie epidemic. When she is rescued, she responds to being informed that she’s “going to a better place” by admitting that “this place wasn’t bad either.” </p>
<p>Jooni’s response points toward the shift in contagion narratives that has emerged since the spread of COVID-19. This shift marks a rejection of the push-for-survival narratives in favour of something more indicative of an endemic. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1286715534264938502"}"></div></p>
<h2>Found within</h2>
<p>Contagion follows a general cycle: <a href="https://www.publichealth.columbia.edu/public-health-now/news/epidemic-endemic-pandemic-what-are-differences">outbreak, epidemic, pandemic and endemic</a>. The determinants of each stage rely upon the rate of spread within a specified geographic region. </p>
<p>Etymologically, the word “endemic” has its origins with the Greek words <em>én</em> and <em>dēmos</em>, meaning “<a href="https://www.newyorker.com/science/annals-of-medicine/coexisting-with-the-coronavirus">in the people</a>.” Thus, it refers to something that is regularly found within a population. </p>
<p>Infectious disease physician Stephen Parodi asserts that an endemic just means that a disease, while still prevalent within a population, <a href="https://www.ama-assn.org/delivering-care/public-health/how-we-will-know-when-covid-19-has-become-endemic">no longer disrupts our daily lives</a>. </p>
<p>Similarly, genomics and viral evolution researcher Aris Katzourakis argues that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-022-00155-x">endemics occur when infection rates are static — neither rising nor falling</a>. Because this stasis occurs differently with each situation, there is no set threshold at which a pandemic becomes endemic. </p>
<p>Not all diseases reach endemic status. And, if endemic status is reached, it does not mean the virus is gone, but rather that things have become “normal.”</p>
<h2>Survival narratives</h2>
<p>We’re most likely familiar with contagion narratives. After all, Steven Soderbergh’s 2011 film <em><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1598778/">Contagion</a></em>, was <a href="https://blogs.dal.ca/openthink/we-need-zombies-now-more-than-ever/">the most watched film on Canadian Netflix</a> in March 2020. Conveniently, this was when most Canadian provinces went into lockdown during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic.</p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/8pYRBvj1yn0?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">A clip from the film <em>Contagion</em> showing the disease spreading throughout the world.</span></figcaption>
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<p>In survival-based contagion narratives, characters often discuss methods for survival and generally refer to themselves as survivors. <em>Contagion</em> chronicles the transmission of a deadly virus that is brought from Hong Kong to the United States. In response, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control is tasked with tracing its origins and finding a cure. The film follows Mitch Emhoff (Matt Damon), who is immune, as he tries to keep his daughter safe in a crumbling Minneapolis. </p>
<p>Ultimately, a vaccine is successfully synthesized, but only after millions have succumbed to the virus.</p>
<p>Like many science fiction and horror films that envision some sort of apocalyptic end, <em>Contagion</em> focuses on the basic requirements for survival: shelter, food, water and medicine. </p>
<p>However, it also deals with <a href="https://doi.org/10.3201%2Feid2602.181022">the breakdown of government systems and the violence that accompanies it</a>.</p>
<h2>A “new” normal</h2>
<p>In contrast, contagion narratives that have turned endemic take place many years after the initial outbreak. In these stories, the infected population is regularly present, but the remaining uninfected population isn’t regularly infected. </p>
<p>A spin-off to the zombie series <em>The Walking Dead</em> takes place a decade after the initial outbreak. In the two seasons of <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10148174/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_7"><em>The Walking Dead: World Beyond</em></a> (2020-2021) four young protagonists — Hope (Alexa Mansour), Iris (Aliyah Royale), Silas (Hal Cumpston) and Elton (Nicolas Cantu) — represent the first generation to come of age within the zombie-infested world. </p>
<p>The four youth spent their formative years in an infected world — similar to Jooni in <em>Peninsula</em>. For these characters, zombies are part of their daily lives, and their constant presence is normalized.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">The trailer for the second season of AMC’s <em>The Walking Dead: World Beyond</em>.</span></figcaption>
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<p>The setting in <em>World Beyond</em> has electricity, helicopters and modern medicine. Characters in endemic narratives have regular access to shelter, food, water and medicine, so they don’t need to resort to violence over limited resources. And notably, they also don’t often refer to themselves as survivors. </p>
<p>Endemic narratives acknowledge that existing within an infected space alongside a virus is not necessarily a bad thing, and that not all inhabitants within infected spaces desire to leave. It is rare in endemic narratives for a character to become infected. </p>
<p>Instead of going out on zombie-killing expeditions in the manner that occurs frequently in the other <em>Walking Dead</em> stories, the characters in <em>World Beyond</em> generally leave the zombies alone. They mark the zombies with different colours of spray-paint to chronicle what they call “migration patterns.” </p>
<p>The zombies have therefore just become another species for the characters to live alongside — something more endemic.</p>
<p><em>The Walking Dead</em>, <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3743822/"><em>Fear the Walking Dead</em></a> (2015-), <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3843168/"><em>Z Nation</em></a> (2014-18), and many other survival-based stories seem to return to the past. In contrast, endemic narratives maintain a present and sometimes even future-looking approach. </p>
<h2>Learning from stories</h2>
<p>According to film producer and media professor Mick Broderick, survival stories maintain a status quo. They seek a “<a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/4240277">nostalgically yearned-for less-complex existence</a>.” It provides solace to imagine an earlier, simpler time when living through a pandemic. </p>
<p>However, the shift from survival to endemic in contagion narratives provides us with many important possibilities. The one I think is quite relevant right now is that it presents us with a way of living with contagion. After all, watching these characters survive a pandemic helps us imagine that we can too.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/190821/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Krista Collier-Jarvis does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>As COVID-19 transitions from a pandemic to an endemic, apocalyptic science-fiction and zombie movies contain examples of how to adjust to the new normal.Krista Collier-Jarvis, PhD Candidate in English, Dalhousie UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1782842022-03-23T19:53:49Z2022-03-23T19:53:49ZThe importance of Indigenous storytelling in tales of post-apocalyptic survival<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/453754/original/file-20220323-23-14c2mc3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C75%2C8441%2C5707&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">In Blood Quantum, Indigenous survivors are immune to a plague that transforms others into zombies.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.elevationpictures.com/catalogue">(Elevation Pictures)</a></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/the-importance-of-indigenous-storytelling-in-tales-of-post-apocalyptic-survival" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>With many provinces across <a href="https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/coronavirus/the-time-is-absolutely-right-for-pandemic-measures-to-lift-experts-say-1.5785151">Canada lifting vaccine and mask mandates</a>, <a href="https://www.healthline.com/health-news/how-to-cope-with-no-mask-anxiety">anxieties are high</a>. If COVID-19 is <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2022/03/18/heres-how-covid-19-transitions-from-a-pandemic-to-endemic.html">becoming endemic</a>, we must search for what philosopher Jonathan Lear calls “<a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674027466">radical hope</a>.” </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/radical-hope-what-young-dreamers-in-literature-can-teach-us-about-covid-19-142528">Radical hope: What young dreamers in literature can teach us about COVID-19</a>
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<p>However, alongside trauma and <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/middle-ages/pandemics-timeline">particularly in times of pandemics throughout history</a>, hope can take the form of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QkDsIcAXETY">stories about resilience</a>. And for Indigenous people in particular, <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/public-health/corporate/publications/chief-public-health-officer-reports-state-public-health-canada/from-risk-resilience-equity-approach-covid-19/indigenous-peoples-covid-19-report.html">who have disproportionately experienced the effects of the pandemic</a>, what better way to find hope than to turn to Indigenous survivors in post-apocalyptic narratives?</p>
<h2>Survival stories</h2>
<p>Métis author Cherie Dimaline provides us the opportunity to do just this. Dimaline is best known for <em>The Marrow Thieves</em>, which won the <a href="https://ggbooks.ca/about">Governor General’s Literary Award</a> and the <a href="https://www.kirkusreviews.com/prize/">Kirkus Prize</a>. <em>The Marrow Thieves</em> is listed as one of <a href="https://time.com/collection/100-best-ya-books/6084702/the-marrow-thieves/"><em>TIME</em> magazine’s Best YA Books of All Time</a>. </p>
<p>The novel was written in response to the <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/5448390/first-nations-suicide-rate-statscan/">suicide epidemic</a> within Indigenous communities. During her work with Indigenous youth, Dimaline wanted to show them a viable future where they could be <a href="https://www.thestar.com/entertainment/books/2017/11/06/cherie-dimaline-hopes-and-dreams-in-the-apocalypse.html">the heroes</a>.</p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ZWYrmrAi8ow?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Cherie Dimaline at The Walrus Talks in 2019.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p><em><a href="https://www.dcbyoungreaders.com/the-marrow-thieves">The Marrow Thieves</a></em> and its sequel, <em><a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/651691/hunting-by-stars-by-cherie-dimaline/9780735269651">Hunting by Stars</a></em>, follow Métis protagonist Frenchie and his found family of other Indigenous survivors as they roam a post-apocalyptic wasteland ravaged by climate change. In this new world, everyone except Indigenous people have lost the ability to dream. <a href="https://herizons.ca/archives/cover/cherie-dimaline-the-importance-of-dreams">Without dreams, people go mad</a> — killing others and committing suicide. </p>
<p>Governments respond by establishing schools inspired by the residential school system, and characters called “recruiters” search for Indigenous survivors to bring back to the schools to be “harvested.” The marrow within the bones of Indigenous people contains dreams, and by harvesting and consuming the marrow, non-Indigenous survivors can finally dream. </p>
<p><em>Hunting by Stars</em> reflects contemporary concerns about residential schools as well as contagion:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“…medical masks hanging from their ears like hand-me-down jewelry. They had the plague. Trash cans at the end of each driveway were heaped with syringes, so many vaccinations and cures thrown out because none would work. The people stumbled into one another, knocking over cans and crunching through needles. They had that look, the one that let you know they were dreamless.”</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Story and hope</h2>
<p>In Dimaline’s novels, there is <em>the</em> Story: as Indigenous survivors tell their stories, the overarching Story changes slightly to include these new voices. Story, with a capital “s,” is comprised of a “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1353/ail.2020.0023">shared oral history</a>,” produced by the various characters’ narratives.</p>
<p>Miigwans, the Elder figure in the novel is responsible for telling Story to ensure the younger Indigenous survivors in the novel remember their history. Therefore, his telling of Story ensures that it will never be forgotten. However, Story is not just the history of the Indigenous characters in the novel; <a href="https://quillandquire.com/review/the-marrow-thieves/">Story is the history</a> of everyone living in Canada, both Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples.</p>
<p>Story includes climate change, pipelines, colonialism, Treaties and the residential school system. </p>
<p>Dimaline admits that stories are how she <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/14/books/indigenous-native-american-sci-fi-horror.html">understands herself and her community</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/453750/original/file-20220323-17-1taksgr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="a book cover HUNTING BY STARS showing an illustration of a silhouetted forest beneath a starry night sky" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/453750/original/file-20220323-17-1taksgr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/453750/original/file-20220323-17-1taksgr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/453750/original/file-20220323-17-1taksgr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/453750/original/file-20220323-17-1taksgr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/453750/original/file-20220323-17-1taksgr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/453750/original/file-20220323-17-1taksgr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/453750/original/file-20220323-17-1taksgr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">The book cover for Cherie Dimaline’s 2021 novel, <em>Hunting by Stars</em>.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/651691/hunting-by-stars-by-cherie-dimaline/9780735269651">(Penguin Random House)</a></span>
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<p>Given that Dimaline’s original inspiration was to <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/books/the-message-ya-novelist-cherie-dimaline-has-for-young-indigenous-readers-1.4195036">bring hope to Indigenous youth</a> amidst rising suicide rates, the relationship between Story and hope cannot be overlooked.</p>
<p>Dimaline’s novels resonate in today’s world. The re-introduction of residential schools in the world of Dimaline’s novels is timely, given recent confirmations of <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/3/1/canada-169-potential-graves-found-at-former-residential-school">unmarked burial sites</a> at former residential school locations throughout Canada.</p>
<h2>Plagues and zombies</h2>
<p>Story plays a similar role in Mi'kmaq director Jeff Barnaby’s 2019 zombie film, <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7394674/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0"><em>Blood Quantum</em></a>. In <em>Blood Quantum</em>, a zombie-producing plague has ravaged the world, but Indigenous people find themselves immune to the virus. They establish a safe zone on the fictional Red Crow Reservation and protect both Indigenous and non-Indigenous survivors. However, the inclusion of the latter is a point of contention for some characters.</p>
<p>In the film, there are a few animated scenes that represent Story. In the final animated scene, an elder named Gisigu appears to perish beneath a mass of zombies. However, the scene changes to animation, and Gisigu emerges victorious. Gisigu may have perished in the material world, but in Story, he lives on. When animated Gisigu emerges from beneath the mass, he vows never to let the zombies pass, protecting the future of his surviving Indigenous family.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/453748/original/file-20220323-17-1qb0kio.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="a man stands over a pile of zombies in a room with blood-stained walls" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/453748/original/file-20220323-17-1qb0kio.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/453748/original/file-20220323-17-1qb0kio.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/453748/original/file-20220323-17-1qb0kio.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/453748/original/file-20220323-17-1qb0kio.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/453748/original/file-20220323-17-1qb0kio.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/453748/original/file-20220323-17-1qb0kio.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/453748/original/file-20220323-17-1qb0kio.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">A still from the Indigenous zombie horror movie, <em>Blood Quantum</em> (2019).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Elevation Pictures)</span></span>
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</figure>
<h2>Understanding through Story</h2>
<p>For many Indigenous people, storytelling is a form of reclamation — what Anishnaabe writer Gerald Vizenor would call “<a href="https://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/nebraska-paperback/9780803210837/">survivance</a>,” a portmanteau of survival and resistance. The concept relies on the use of stories to ensure the continued <a href="https://politicaltheology.com/survivance/">presence of Indigenous people</a>.</p>
<p>In response to the recent confirmations of unmarked burial sites at residential schools, <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2021/11/21/canadas-crying-shame-the-fields-full-of-childrens-bones">survivors are recounting stories about those who unfortunately did not survive</a>. Doing so is survivance — these stories bring lost Indigenous children into the present and give those who survived as well as those who unfortunately did not, <a href="https://theconversation.com/residential-school-literature-can-teach-the-colonial-present-and-imagine-better-futures-120383">voice and agency</a>.</p>
<p>As a third-generation residential school survivor, I cannot possibly understand what my grandmother experienced inside the schools. I can, however, <a href="https://epl.bibliocommons.com/list/share/69643431/675287927">read Story and begin to understand my own part in Story</a>. Therefore, we can all learn a little something about ourselves and our world from Indigenous survival stories.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/178284/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Krista Collier-Jarvis does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Indigenous stories of survival in fictional post-apocalyptic landscapes draw from actual events and experiences. These stories preserve histories and the possibility of hope.Krista Collier-Jarvis, PhD Candidate in English, Dalhousie UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1776252022-03-13T19:14:03Z2022-03-13T19:14:03ZZombies continue to be the ‘little black dress’ of social allegory in Netflix’s All Of Us Are Dead<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/449113/original/file-20220301-25-ttvqjw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C1020%2C636&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source"> Yang Hae-sung/Netflix</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Any horror scholar will tell you: the movies that scare us most are the ones that speak to our real anxieties. These anxieties find their way into horror movies, expressed through sub-genres like vampires, slasher flicks and body horror. Others concerns, like the War on Terror (<a href="https://go.gale.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA236163935&sid=googleScholar&v=2.1&it=r&linkaccess=abs&issn=00097101&p=AONE&sw=w&userGroupName=anon%7Ed08fd3ce">explored in Hostel, 2005)</a> and the AIDS crisis (<a href="https://www.brattleblog.brattlefilm.org/2017/10/19/the-thing-and-the-aids-epidemic-5862/">as manifested in The Thing, 1982</a>), are associated with a particular cultural moment. </p>
<p>These days, it’s hard to tell a story about a rapidly-spreading pandemic without acknowledging the one we’re living in. It’s hard to tell a zombie story with any kind of novelty, but Netflix’s new Korean series All Of Us Are Dead makes an ambitious attempt.</p>
<p>Horror subgenres rise and fall in cycles that align with these fears: the guise of fiction allows them to make certain ideas explicit that we might only have felt beneath the surface.</p>
<p>The zombie is the little black dress of social allegories in horror. </p>
<p>Zombies can stand in for the amassed proletariat, trapped in exhausted cycles of poverty. They can represent the mindless bourgeoisie, endlessly greedy as they stumble through cities without a care in the world. They can be embodied by performers of any age or race, and their typical lack of speech allows an audience to project any metaphor into the blank space of their brains. </p>
<p>They have been analysed as terrorists (28 Days Later, 2002) and communists (Day of the Dead, 1985), as marginalised races (Land of the Dead, 2005) and voracious colonisers (Cargo, 2017). </p>
<p>The most popular horror stories are malleable: they invite the audience to conjure whatever frightens them onto the monsters, exaggerating, affirming and sometimes challenging their real-world anxieties.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/IN5TD4VRcSM?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<h2>Specific zombie anxieties</h2>
<p>The zombie genre was first codified by George A. Romero with <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/why-night-living-dead-is-more-relevant-ever-1145708/">Night of the Living Dead</a> in 1968. Most zombie movies predating Romero drew from Haitian folklore origins, speaking to very <a href="https://mcfarlandbooks.com/product/american-zombie-gothic/">specific anxieties</a> around Black mysticism and enslaved bodies. Romero reimagined zombies as a latent contagion of shambling masses. </p>
<p>His films still engaged thoughtfully with issues of racism: the Black hero in Night of the Living Dead survives the zombie hordes only to be shot dead by white vigilantes. This codified another important theme in zombie stories: the living are just as dangerous as the dead.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/450259/original/file-20220307-56947-1pcxn7w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/450259/original/file-20220307-56947-1pcxn7w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/450259/original/file-20220307-56947-1pcxn7w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/450259/original/file-20220307-56947-1pcxn7w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/450259/original/file-20220307-56947-1pcxn7w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/450259/original/file-20220307-56947-1pcxn7w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/450259/original/file-20220307-56947-1pcxn7w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/450259/original/file-20220307-56947-1pcxn7w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Zombie apocalypse survival series The Walking Dead has been running since 2010.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">IMDB.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>On a grander scale, apocalypse narratives represent a dissolution of the social order. Some stories blame this on a lack of hard authority: wishy-washy leadership collapses, and only the strongest survive. The Walking Dead banked on this for a decade: the gun-slinging sheriff was exaggerated into a fascist fantasy, where the weak fell in line behind the strong.</p>
<h2>Anti-authoritarianism</h2>
<p>All Of Us Are Dead leans toward the anti-authoritarian: malice and pride keep the police and military from intervening when a zombie outbreak strikes a small-town school. Still, there’s one good cop, one good teacher, and one good firefighter – though not all of them make it out unscathed. </p>
<p>The school administration are the first villains: a biology teacher’s son is mercilessly bullied, and is almost killed when the principal refuses to interfere. To empower his son, the teacher develops a virus that amplifies testosterone – a bizarre choice of pseudoscience – to turn fear into super-strength. This clearly codifies zombies as the rising masses failed by authority. If you’ll forgive the pun, nobody can control their faculties.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/450266/original/file-20220307-23-1w5arow.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/450266/original/file-20220307-23-1w5arow.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/450266/original/file-20220307-23-1w5arow.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/450266/original/file-20220307-23-1w5arow.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/450266/original/file-20220307-23-1w5arow.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/450266/original/file-20220307-23-1w5arow.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/450266/original/file-20220307-23-1w5arow.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/450266/original/file-20220307-23-1w5arow.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Rather than the traditional shambling hordes, All Of Us Are Dead has fast zombies.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Netflix</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The problem is that the shambling pace and vacant minds of zombies make them inevitable, but often boring: the relentless monotony makes it difficult to sustain tension across 12 hour-long episodes. Like many 21st-century zombie stories, All Of Us Are Dead literally ups the pace by having sprinting zombies. </p>
<p>A new twist is introduced halfway through: some characters who get bitten can still speak and feel, gaining super-strength and heightened senses. They make a complex metaphor for asymptomatic carriers.</p>
<h2>A zombie catalyst</h2>
<p>The deepest conflict in All Of Us Are Dead is between students and authorities. Before the outbreak, the show frankly depicts of bullying, sexual assault, suicide and teen pregnancy. </p>
<p>The school system is already broken: zombies are just a catalyst for this to turn into conflict. Choi Nam-Ra, one of the students, muses: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>In some countries, they are sadder when adults die than when children die. And in others, they are sadder when children die. Which do you think ours is? </p>
</blockquote>
<p>In a later episode, Choi Nam-Ra and her friends are fired upon by the military when a rescue mission is suddenly aborted by command. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/450267/original/file-20220307-85970-1loa2rb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/450267/original/file-20220307-85970-1loa2rb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/450267/original/file-20220307-85970-1loa2rb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/450267/original/file-20220307-85970-1loa2rb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/450267/original/file-20220307-85970-1loa2rb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/450267/original/file-20220307-85970-1loa2rb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/450267/original/file-20220307-85970-1loa2rb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/450267/original/file-20220307-85970-1loa2rb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In All Of Us Are Dead, the high school is a microcosm for wider issues in society.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Netflix</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Critics and fans have identified the overt parallels between the show and the <a href="https://www.teenvogue.com/story/how-all-of-us-are-dead-uses-a-zombie-attack-to-examine-korean-and-global-issues">2014 Sewol Ferry tragedy</a>, where the crew abandoned the capsizing ship and left the passengers, mostly high school students, to drown.</p>
<p>While horror uses colourful allegories to entertain, it can speak truthfully to our emotions. All Of Us Are Dead follows a formulaic zombie plot, but this allows the show to challenge us with complex emotional struggles. </p>
<p>As we know from the real pandemic, a crisis doesn’t happen when an idyllic world is shattered by a few bad actors: it happens when the collective pressure of ignored pain and complacency is pushed to breaking point. Like all good zombie stories, All Of Us Are Dead was never about the zombies.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/parasites-win-is-the-perfect-excuse-to-get-stuck-into-genre-bending-and-exciting-korean-cinema-131548">Parasite's win is the perfect excuse to get stuck into genre-bending and exciting Korean cinema</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/177625/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Naja Later does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Zombies in horror are often a stand-in for our collective anxieties, manifesting our fears. All Of Us Are Dead continues this grand tradition.Naja Later, Academic Tutor in Media and Communications, Swinburne University of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1740382022-01-04T16:25:54Z2022-01-04T16:25:54ZWhy it’s grim, but unsurprising, that the U.S. Capitol attack looked like it was out of a ‘zombie movie’<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/439213/original/file-20220103-50043-1smnfzl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=26%2C8%2C3880%2C3449&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Lights from police vehicles illuminate Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C., in the evening following the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 2021.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster) </span></span></figcaption></figure><p>One year ago, <a href="https://people.com/politics/witness-to-rioters-jumping-through-capitol-window-like-out-of-zombie-movie/">some witnesses</a> to the assault on the Capitol building in Washington, D.C., referenced zombies when describing the mayhem as the mob of Donald Trump supporters broke into the building <a href="https://www.cnet.com/news/aocs-terrifying-account-of-the-capitol-siege-it-almost-felt-like-a-zombie-movie/">and people sought safety</a>.</p>
<p>“It was like something out of a zombie movie,” recalled a photographer who was at the scene, speaking of seeing hordes of rioters. Similarly, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said it “almost felt like a zombie movie” as she described hiding and seeking shelter.</p>
<p>In the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20131025-zombie-nation">20 years that</a> zombie apocalypse narratives <a href="https://theconversation.com/were-obsessed-with-zombies-which-says-a-lot-about-today-37552">have grown and reached critical mass</a> in popular media, such comparisons <a href="https://theconversation.com/american-support-for-conspiracy-theories-and-armed-rebellion-isnt-new-we-just-didnt-believe-it-before-the-capitol-insurrection-173486">at an insurrection</a> at the seat of American democracy — <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/11/us/who-died-in-capitol-building-attack.html">where five people died</a> and scores more were <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/8080633/us-capitol-riot-suicide-3rd-officer/">injured and traumatized</a> — are disturbing, but unsurprising. </p>
<p>More significant, however, is that zombie <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/coronavirus-apocalypse-myths">apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic narratives</a> have become popular during the same economic and cultural currents that gave rise to Trump’s Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement and his presidency. </p>
<h2>Glut of post-apocalyptic narratives</h2>
<p>Depictions of the end of civilization on Earth, especially after the advent of nuclear weapons, have often focused on the spectacle of disaster, as discussed by writer Susan Sontag in her classic 1965 essay “<a href="https://americanfuturesiup.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/sontag-the-imagination-of-disaster.pdf">The Imagination of Disaster</a>.” </p>
<p>In many post-apocalyptic narratives that have become prevalent in the past two decades, like Cormac McCarthy’s novel <a href="http://knopfdoubleday.com/guide/9780307387899/the-road/"><em>The Road</em></a> or the television series <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1520211/"><em>The Walking Dead</em></a>, the actual disaster itself is less significant than life in the aftermath. </p>
<p>Literature scholar Connor Pitetti notes this diversification of the apocalyptic imagination in his essay “<a href="https://doi.org/10.5621/sciefictstud.44.3.0437">The Uses of the End of the World: Apocalypse and Postapocalypse as Narrative Modes</a>.” He writes that in the 21st century, narratives about the bomb have <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5621/sciefictstud.44.3.0437">been joined by those pertaining to more diverse “eschatological powers”</a> — forces bound in some transcendent and otherworldly way with end times and the final history of humankind.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="People are seen rehearsing a zombie scene, staggering." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/439228/original/file-20220103-117041-1hqusjf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/439228/original/file-20220103-117041-1hqusjf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439228/original/file-20220103-117041-1hqusjf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439228/original/file-20220103-117041-1hqusjf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439228/original/file-20220103-117041-1hqusjf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439228/original/file-20220103-117041-1hqusjf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439228/original/file-20220103-117041-1hqusjf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Actors portraying zombies in ‘The Walking Dead’ rehearse at Universal Studios Hollywood in Los Angeles, in June 2016.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Cultural critic <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/coronavirus-apocalypse-myths/">Laurie Penny writes that</a> “more post-apocalyptic entertainment has come out in the beginning of this century than in the entirety of the last one.” </p>
<h2>Broken civilization?</h2>
<p>But why should this be the case? Some scholars of history, literature and culture suggest that if people come to believe civilization as we know it is irreparably broken, the prospect of its end may become an appealing fantasy.</p>
<p>One factor may be <a href="https://theconversation.com/apocalypse-now-our-incessant-desire-to-picture-the-end-of-the-world-46104">the desire for alternatives</a> in a world where contemporary <a href="https://www.penguin.com/static/pages/features/illfarestheland">consumer capitalism is often presumed to be inevitable, rather than a human choice</a>, as noted by the late historian <a href="https://www.nybooks.com/contributors/judt-tony/">Tony Judt</a> in his book <em>Ill Fares the Land</em>.</p>
<p>It becomes easier, says literary critic Fredric Jameson, “<a href="https://www.versobooks.com/books/400-the-cultural-turn">to imagine the thoroughgoing deterioration of the Earth and of nature than the breakdown of capitalism</a>” — or even
“<a href="https://www.johnhuntpublishing.com/zer0-books/our-books/capitalist-realism">to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism</a>,”
in the words of <a href="https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/2021/01/mark-fisher-postcapitalist-desire-review">cultural critic</a> Mark Fisher.</p>
<h2>Economic insecurity, inequality at play</h2>
<p>Writing about the dangers posed by Trumpism, interdisciplinary political scientist Thomas Homer-Dixon <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-the-american-polity-is-cracked-and-might-collapse-canada-must-prepare/">notes the key factors giving rise to it</a> “include stagnating middle-class incomes, chronic economic insecurity and rising inequality.” Additionally, he writes, while “returns to labour have stagnated and returns to capital have soared,”
right-wing ideologues inflamed white fears that whites are being “replaced.”</p>
<p>Trump’s <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/11/7/21551364/white-trump-voters-2020">principally white constituency</a> views the increasing diversification of the American populace as a threat.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="People are seen staggering amid smoke in a hallway." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/439207/original/file-20220103-106551-1hq1rbq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/439207/original/file-20220103-106551-1hq1rbq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439207/original/file-20220103-106551-1hq1rbq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439207/original/file-20220103-106551-1hq1rbq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439207/original/file-20220103-106551-1hq1rbq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439207/original/file-20220103-106551-1hq1rbq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439207/original/file-20220103-106551-1hq1rbq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Smoke fills the walkway outside the Senate chamber as rioters are confronted by U.S. Capitol Police officers inside the Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 6, 2021.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>During his campaign, Trump — elected amid this populist, nativist backlash — vowed to be a wrecking ball laying waste to the edifices of the Washington, D.C., establishment. The sentiment was similarly voiced by his former <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/election-us-2016-37971742">senior strategist</a> Steve Bannon, who in 2017 characterized Trump as a “blunt instrument” with which to “<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2017/02/23/politics/steve-bannon-world-view/">deconstruct the administrative state</a>.” </p>
<p>This <a href="https://www.salon.com/2019/09/17/donald-trump-king-of-chaos-new-research-on-right-wing-psychology-points-toward-big-trouble-ahead/">appetite for destruction</a> wasn’t Trump’s creation; rather, Trump has given voice and license to the forces of reaction and backlash. </p>
<h2>Reaction, backlash</h2>
<p>A sense of perverse pleasure in imagining the end of democratic law and order was evident in the Capitol assault a year ago, especially in the often absurd and mythically styled costuming of some of the insurgents. It ranged from sinister <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/09/us/capitol-hill-insurrection-extremist-flags-soh/index.html">white supremacist, extremist paramilitary garb</a> to the <a href="https://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198201427.001.0001/acprof-9780198201427">familiar 1776</a> getup <a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/04/capitol-riot-police-response-report.html">of Tea Partiers</a>, but also <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2021/01/why-capitol-rioters-wore-animal-pelts/617639/">vaguely frontiersman-like furs and pelts</a>, and of course the pseudo-tribal cosplay of <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/11/30/qanon-shaman-jacob-chansley-appeals-conviction-in-trump-capitol-riot-case.html">Jacob Chansley, the notorious QAnon shaman</a>.</p>
<p>As news footage <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWJVMoe7OY0">from the day shows</a>, bizarre outfits did not mitigate the rage and violence that marked <a href="https://www.poynter.org/fact-checking/2021/was-the-jan-6-attack-on-the-capitol-an-attempted-coup-an-academic-group-now-says-yes/">the attempted coup</a>. Nor do they detract from the dangers posed by the MAGA movement.</p>
<p>Commentators have noted how the extremist ideologies of Trump supporters are entwined with a revival of religious impulses. These are <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/06/inside-the-cult-of-trump-his-rallies-are-church-and-he-is-the-gospel">often focused on stark contrasts between goodness and evil and the possession of secret knowledge</a> that fuels conspiracy theories <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/donald-trump-christians-fundamentalists-end-times-rapture-1083131/">and “end times” apocalyptic speculation</a>. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/qanon-and-the-storm-of-the-u-s-capitol-the-offline-effect-of-online-conspiracy-theories-152815">QAnon and the storm of the U.S. Capitol: The offline effect of online conspiracy theories</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Seeking authenticity in ashes</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.wired.com/story/coronavirus-apocalypse-myths/">Penny argues</a> that the proliferation of apocalyptic narratives exist “somewhere between wish fulfilment and trauma rehearsal.” </p>
<p>An example of this can be seen in <a href="https://www.survivalistboards.com/threads/zombie-apocalypse.379120/">discussion groups</a> and <a href="https://mysurvivalforum.com/forums/zombie_apocalypse/">message boards</a> enthusing over the prospect of a zombie apocalypse. </p>
<p>A common refrain, widely merchandized <a href="https://twitter.com/IntensityGrafx/status/1157820986827386880">on decals</a>, T-shirts, mugs and beyond, has become: “The hardest part of the zombie apocalypse will be pretending I’m not excited.”</p>
<p>Such statements reveal a sort of hopeful nihilism: a sensibility that seeks, gleefully, to demolish and destroy in the vague assumption that life in the ashes will be better, truer and more authentic.</p>
<p>In a zombie apocalypse, this may be seen in characters who come into their own as hyper-competent bad asses when resisting zombies (a trope notably parodied in the <a href="https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/shaun-of-the-dead-2004">British zombie comedy</a> <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0365748/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0"><em>Shaun of the Dead</em></a>), but also characters who face zombie enemies against whom violence is not merely sanctioned but morally imperative.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="The sun rises behind the U.S. Capitol building." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/439208/original/file-20220103-23072-17250n2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/439208/original/file-20220103-23072-17250n2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439208/original/file-20220103-23072-17250n2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439208/original/file-20220103-23072-17250n2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439208/original/file-20220103-23072-17250n2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439208/original/file-20220103-23072-17250n2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439208/original/file-20220103-23072-17250n2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Capitol dome is seen beyond a perimeter security fence at sunrise in Washington, D.C., in March 2021.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Zombie warnings</h2>
<p>So have the zombies been trying to warn us about Trumpism this whole time? </p>
<p>The question is not nearly as glib as it seems. Cultural preoccupations, such as the disaster films Sontag wrote about in 1965, almost invariably provide a window into societal anxieties and fears on one hand, and wishes and desires on the other. Unfortunately, such insights often only reveal themselves with the benefit of hindsight.</p>
<p>Sontag’s writing articulated the pervasive fear imbued by the Cold War’s threat of nuclear war. At the same time, however, they expressed faith that societal institutions — government, the military, science — would prevail.</p>
<p>Sadly, our obsession with post-apocalyptic scenarios is largely borne of the loss of such faith.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/174038/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christopher Lockett does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The popularity of zombie apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic narratives has emerged from some of the same economic and cultural currents that gave rise to Trump’s presidency.Christopher Lockett, Associate Professor, English, Memorial University of NewfoundlandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1713432021-11-12T15:25:23Z2021-11-12T15:25:23ZZombie apocalypse? How gene editing could be used as a weapon – and what to do about it<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/431659/original/file-20211112-23-187k38x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=80%2C80%2C4412%2C2910&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Probably not...</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/zombie-crowd-walking-nighthalloween-conceptillustration-painting-454095508"> Tithi Luadthong/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>It has been over a year since the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared COVID-19 a pandemic. And perhaps the most important lesson is that we were completely unprepared to face the debilitating virus. </p>
<hr>
<iframe id="noa-web-audio-player" style="border: none" src="https://embed-player.newsoveraudio.com/v4?key=x84olp&id=https://theconversation.com/zombie-apocalypse-how-gene-editing-could-be-used-as-a-weapon-and-what-to-do-about-it-171343&bgColor=F5F5F5&color=D8352A&playColor=D8352A" width="100%" height="110px"></iframe>
<p><em>You can listen to more articles from The Conversation, narrated by Noa, <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/audio-narrated-99682">here</a>.</em></p>
<hr>
<p>This raises some scary thoughts. What if the threat wasn’t COVID-19, but a gene-edited pathogen designed to turn us into zombies – ghost-like, agitated creatures with little awareness of our surroundings? With recent advances in gene editing, it may be possible for bioterrorists to design viruses capable of altering our behaviour, spreading such a disease and ultimately killing us. And chances are we still wouldn’t be sufficiently prepared to deal with it. </p>
<p>A zombie apocalypse may sound far-fetched, reserved for the annals of graphic novels, immersive gaming experiences and popular culture. But there are examples of <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/store/ebooks/the-real-zombies-of-nature/">“zombification” in nature</a>. Perhaps the most well known is rabies, which can cause aggression and hallucination and is almost always fatal once symptoms appear. </p>
<p>But there are others. A recently discovered kind of wasp, for example, can turn a particular species of spider (<em>Anelosimus eximius</em>) <a href="https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/11/181127092541.htm">into “zombies”</a> by laying eggs on their abdomen. The resulting larvae then attaches itself to the spider, feeding on it, while the spider, once a social individual, leaves the colony and prepares to die alone. Other <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/zombies-in-nature-science-2019-5?r=US&IR=T#the-animal-kingdom-also-boasts-a-few-examples-of-the-type-of-external-control-that-the-night-king-exerts-over-his-wights-in-game-of-thrones-parasitic-fungi-for-instance-can-enslave-ants-5">zombification examples</a> from nature include the African sleeping sickness, a fatal neurological condition created by insect-borne parasites, and the <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-63400-1"><em>Ophiocordyceps unilateralis</em></a> fungus, which changes the behaviour of carpenter ants before killing them and sprouting out of their heads.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Image of an ant with Cordyceps." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/431675/original/file-20211112-1788-80t20e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/431675/original/file-20211112-1788-80t20e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/431675/original/file-20211112-1788-80t20e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/431675/original/file-20211112-1788-80t20e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/431675/original/file-20211112-1788-80t20e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/431675/original/file-20211112-1788-80t20e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/431675/original/file-20211112-1788-80t20e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ant with fungus.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/ant-cordyceps-31294987">Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Weaponising pathogens</h2>
<p>Last year, the Nobel Prize in Chemistry <a href="https://theconversation.com/nobel-prize-two-women-share-chemistry-prize-for-the-first-time-for-work-on-genetic-scissors-147721">recognised</a> the development of a type of genetic scissors <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0092867414006047">called CRISPR-Cas9</a>. Interest in this technology has been simmering for a while, with equal doses of excitement and fear. Because of its ability to edit the human genome <a href="https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-22308-3">with unprecedented precision</a>, replacing a single letter in the DNA, CRISPR has already proven itself useful in treating genetic conditions such as sickle cell disease, beta thalassemia, and many others. </p>
<p>But CRISPR-Cas9 could theoretically also be used for darker purposes, such as bioterrorism. It could alter pathogens to make them more transmissible or fatal. Alternatively, it could turn a non-pathogen, such as a harmless microbe, into an aggressive virus. The technique may even be able to alter a virus to make it dangerous for a larger range of species than it currently infects, or make it resistant to antibiotics or antivirals.</p>
<p>Whether CRISPR could be used to infect humans in a way to make them zombie-like remains a theoretical speculation. At the moment, there are probably easier ways to terrorise people. But as biotechnologies improve in the wake of COVID, the risk from bioterrorism is increasing. </p>
<p>If a zombie-like disease could be created, it clearly wouldn’t make deceased people reawaken as zombies. But an infection that passed through saliva with extremely high transmission and mortality rate, and which caused agitation, destructive behaviour and death, wouldn’t be far off the horror that we see in zombie movies. Such a virus would spread rapidly from human to human in a similar manner to diseases such as <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/vhf/ebola/index.html">Ebola</a> and <a href="https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/marburg-virus-disease">Marburg</a> viruses. In the epic zombie film, <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0289043/">28 Days Later</a>, the fictitious “rage virus” was, in fact, inspired by these two real-life viruses.</p>
<p>Given these possibilities, it is not surprising that the director of the US National Intelligence, James Clapper, <a href="https://www.technologyreview.com/2016/02/09/71575/top-us-intelligence-official-calls-gene-editing-a-wmd-threat/">termed gene editing</a> “weapons of mass destruction and proliferation” in 2018. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Image of genetic code with the letters CRISPR in the middle" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/431660/original/file-20211112-21-1fjd638.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/431660/original/file-20211112-21-1fjd638.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=430&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/431660/original/file-20211112-21-1fjd638.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=430&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/431660/original/file-20211112-21-1fjd638.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=430&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/431660/original/file-20211112-21-1fjd638.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=540&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/431660/original/file-20211112-21-1fjd638.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=540&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/431660/original/file-20211112-21-1fjd638.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=540&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">CRISPR can alter single letters in DNA.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/crispr-locus-on-dna-sequence-693879967">Shuttesrstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Many countries are aware of the risks. In 2018, the US government released its <a href="https://www.phe.gov/Preparedness/biodefense-strategy/Pages/default.aspx">first bio-defence strategy</a>, involving multiple government agencies. The plan covers not only deliberate bioterror threats, but also “naturally occurring outbreaks and infectious diseases that escape a lab accidentally”. And, curiously, the US Department of Defense Strategic Command unit has issued a training programme called <a href="https://www.stratcom.mil/Portals/8/Documents/FOIA/CONPLAN_8888-11.pdf?ver=2016-10-17-114016-887">CONOP 8888 (Counter-Zombie Dominance)</a>, which simulates a zombie apocalypse situation. However, this was designed to be completely fictitious, providing military and defence training without the need to involve real, classified information.</p>
<h2>How to stop it</h2>
<p>Do we stand a chance against such gene-edited pathogens? We have <a href="https://www.un.org/disarmament/publications/library/">international law conventions</a> on biological and chemical toxins. These strictly prohibit states from acquiring or retaining biological weapons. But it is questionable whether these are adequate in the face of novel approaches. Gene editing technologies such as CRISPR are getting cheaper and easier to work with. That means rogue scientists or organisations could use them for bioterrorism.</p>
<p>Ideally, specific provisions in these international instruments should be revisited and adapted to the changing environment. This may include imposing a moratorium on experimenting with gene editing as biological weapon tools or allowing experimentation strictly for benefiting human health.</p>
<p>In June, a WHO expert committee published two reports (see <a href="https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789240030381">here</a> and <a href="https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789240030060">here</a>) that made recommendations about how human genome editing could be governed at the appropriate institutional, national and global level. Its framework incorporates structures of governance that already exist in different countries, such as regulatory authorities or national guidelines regarding genome editing or similar technologies. It recommends, for example, that ethics committees review clinical trials and approvals in the area.</p>
<p>While these recommendations provide some clarity, it is concerning that these are simply guidelines that do not have the force of law. The WHO is not in a position to regulate genome editing in individual countries. It therefore becomes incumbent on individual countries to implement these recommendations as part of their own national law. Another problem is that the guidelines do not address issues of safety and efficacy – stating this wasn’t part of the scope of the review. But that may change going forward. </p>
<p>For now, these recommendations are the closest thing we have to a global framework of governance. And as the technology continues to develop, it is hoped that they will also evolve accordingly. But ultimately, we may need to think about how to make such frameworks legally binding.</p>
<p>If all else fails, we might have to start working on our cardio and survival skills, and take a leaf out of the books of <a href="https://theconversation.com/we-spoke-to-survivalists-prepping-for-disaster-heres-what-we-learned-about-the-end-of-the-world-118867">survivalist preppers</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/171343/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Pin Lean Lau is affiliated with the Interest Group of Supranational Bio-Law of the European Association of Health Law (EAHL). </span></em></p>Rabies, for example, is a naturally occurring ‘zombie’ disease.Pin Lean Lau, Lecturer in Bio-Law, Brunel Law School | Centre for Artificial Intelligence: Social & Digital Innovations, Brunel University LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1706102021-10-27T15:00:50Z2021-10-27T15:00:50ZParasitic wasps turn other insects into ‘zombies,’ saving millions of humans along the way<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/428670/original/file-20211027-13-ipypy2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C47%2C10577%2C6982&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The diaphanous wings and striking markings of this parasitic wasp (Arotes decorus) belie its gruesome nature.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Wasps have a <a href="https://askentomologists.com/2015/09/27/please-stop-sharing-the-wasps-are-jerks-memes/">reputation for being jerks</a> because of their perceived aggressiveness and ability to sting repeatedly. They’re often negatively compared with the honey production and agricultural pollination of bees. </p>
<p>If wasps are jerks, however, they are positively saintly compared to their parasitic brethren. </p>
<p>Parasitic wasps sting to inject their eggs into a host, often accompanied by venom and a virus. Their larvae grow and eventually emerge from the unwitting host — usually killing it. Then they becoming adults and fly off to continue the cycle. </p>
<p>Some wasps go further, controlling their host’s behaviour, effectively “zombifying” them to help the larva survive. After studying the behaviour of ichneumon wasps, which lay their eggs in moth larvae, naturalist Charles Darwin wrote that they were so evil that they were proof against the idea that God was directing evolution: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“<a href="https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/DCP-LETT-2814.xml">I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent & omnipotent God would have designedly created the Ichneumonidæ with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of caterpillars</a>.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>While no wasps are known to lay eggs in humans (although <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/parasites/myiasis/biology.html">some flies do</a>), they have inspired films like the <em>Alien</em> franchise and the recently released monster survival video game <a href="https://thedarkpictures.fandom.com/wiki/Alien_Parasites"><em>House of Ashes</em></a>. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/jQ5lPt9edzQ?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Ridley Scott’s 1979 movie ‘Alien’ centred on a parasitic alien species.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But whether inspiring horror or metaphysical questions, parasitic wasps also save millions of human lives.</p>
<h2>Parasitic wasps to the rescue</h2>
<p>In the 1970s, the cassava mealybug (<em>Phenacoccus manihoti</em>) entered Western and Central Africa as an <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/0167-8809(90)90122-T">invasive pest species from Brazil</a>. It rapidly spread across cassava fields causing <a href="https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.en.36.010191.001353">crop losses as high as 80 per cent</a>. The cassava plant is a staple food crop <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/0167-8809(93)90032-K">because it is drought-resistant</a>. The mealybug invasion threatened the <a href="https://www.fao.org/3/a0154e/a0154e02.htm">food base of 200 million people</a>. </p>
<p>The Swiss entomologist Hans Rudolf Herren, who was conducting research in the area, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1570-7458.1986.tb01013.x">found a wasp parasitizing the mealybug</a> (<em>Epidinocarsis lopezi</em>). The parasitic wasp posed <a href="https://doi.org/10.1006/bcon.2001.0937">little risk to sub-Saharan species</a>. </p>
<p>After <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1570-7458.1985.tb03515.x">rearing the wasps</a> and gathering funding, <a href="https://www.worldfoodprize.org/en/laureates/19871999_laureates/1995_herren/">Herren bought planes</a> and co-ordinated <a href="https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.en.36.010191.001353">strategic airdrops and ground release of wasp cocoons</a> to areas affected by the mealybug. From those locations, the wasp populations grew and spread on their own, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1006/bcon.2001.0937">reducing the mealybug population to manageable levels for years</a>. </p>
<p>This effort <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1574-0862.2009.00427.x">saved an estimated 20 million lives</a>, billions in crops and avoided the use of pesticides. Herren received the <a href="https://www.worldfoodprize.org/en/laureates/19871999_laureates/1995_herren/">World Food Prize in 1995 for his efforts</a>.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/3E-r80C_6tE?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">David Attenborough describes the habits of parasitic wasps for BBC Earth.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Biocontrol heroes</h2>
<p><a href="https://biocontrol.entomology.cornell.edu/what.php">Biocontrol is the use of one organism to combat a pest</a>, and this was far from the only successful case of wasps as biocontrol. Wasps have successfully defended against many crop pests <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/S2095-3119(18)62078-7">in Chinese agriculture</a>. </p>
<p>The samurai wasp (<em>Trissolcus japonicus</em>) was being studied for potential use against the brown marmorated stinkbug, a threat to many crops across the continental United States. However, the wasp preempted this, <a href="https://www.science.org/content/article/scientists-spent-years-plan-import-wasp-kill-stinkbugs-then-it-showed-its-own">moving into stinkbug territories on its own</a>. </p>
<p>Wasps are even being deployed to prevent moths from <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-norfolk-56086274">damaging historical sites and their artifacts</a>. Here in Canada, at least four wasp species have been <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/emerald-ash-borer-wasps-fight-1.4303129">released to control the emerald ash borer</a>, a cause of deforestation across Canada.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-invasive-emerald-ash-borer-has-destroyed-millions-of-trees-scientists-aim-to-control-it-with-tiny-parasitic-wasps-158403">The invasive emerald ash borer has destroyed millions of trees – scientists aim to control it with tiny parasitic wasps</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Pros and cons</h2>
<p>Biocontrol has several advantages over pesticides. Populations can grow and spread on their own, as demonstrated by the samurai wasps, whereas pesticides typically need humans to spread them. Organisms can <a href="https://doi.org/10.1006/bcon.1994.1032">maintain their presence over the long-term without human intervention</a>, while pesticides often require repeat applications. Pests can also evolve to resist pesticides in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/ps.4899">as few as 20 generations</a>. And as biocontrol uses another organism, they can evolve in response the pest’s defences.</p>
<p>Biocontrol is not free from issues. It often introduces a new invasive species to deal with an existing one. It can be difficult to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1006/bcon.2001.0937">predict the effects of a new species on an unprepared ecosystem</a>. </p>
<p>For example, the cane toad was introduced in Australia to eat several insect pests there. Instead, the poisonous toad <a href="https://www.awe.gov.au/environment/biodiversity/threatened/key-threatening-processes/biological-effects-cane-toads">became a lethal meal for several native species</a>, disrupting many other parts of the ecosystems there. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/428680/original/file-20211027-15-1y65pcf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="a kookaburra eating a cane toad" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/428680/original/file-20211027-15-1y65pcf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/428680/original/file-20211027-15-1y65pcf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/428680/original/file-20211027-15-1y65pcf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/428680/original/file-20211027-15-1y65pcf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/428680/original/file-20211027-15-1y65pcf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=489&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/428680/original/file-20211027-15-1y65pcf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=489&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/428680/original/file-20211027-15-1y65pcf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=489&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A laughing kookaburra eats a cane toad. Some kookaburras die from ingesting the poisonous toads.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Parasites may avoid some of these issues as, unlike predators, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.en.36.010191.002413">they are often limited to a single or very few host species</a>, making them less likely to go off-target and affect species other than the intended one. </p>
<p>Given that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-800876-8.00006-0">most agricultural pests are insects</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/326788a0">most pest insects are targeted by at least one parasitic wasp</a> (<a href="https://doi.org/10.1186/s12898-018-0176-x">there are an estimated 750,000 parasitic wasp species</a>), this gives a legion of options to study for safe and effective pest management.</p>
<p>So next time you’re online and see wasps being unfairly maligned, consider the millions of humans across the world who are alive and able to feed themselves because of them. And maybe this upcoming Halloween, should you encounter the spirit of a certain 1800s English naturalist going on about the theological implications of parasitic wasps’ evil, tell him of the good they can do.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/170610/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dylan Miller receives funding from NSERC (Natural Science and Engineering Council of Canada)</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Shelley Adamo receives funding from NSERC (Natural Science and Engineering Council of Canada) </span></em></p>Parasitic wasps are body-snatchers — if you’re an insect. But these much-maligned creatures have saved millions of human lives by controlling the spread of the cassava mealybug.Dylan Miller, PhD student, Neuroscience, Dalhousie UniversityShelley Adamo, Professor, Psychology and Neuroscience, Dalhousie UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1600042021-07-05T04:51:28Z2021-07-05T04:51:28ZSame monster, different meanings: how Indigenous ideas about the Pangkarlangu Hairypeople have changed<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/399150/original/file-20210506-24-158zlje.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=51%2C89%2C4209%2C2293&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source"> Anya Wotton, ANU</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The monsters we are familiar with from books, films and TV have long been analysed by scholars as metaphors capturing what ails society. Think of how different types of zombies stand for fears about racial tensions, nuclear destruction, rampant capitalism, contagion, migration and so forth.</p>
<p>The monsters that haunt people off the screen or pages of a book can be found anywhere. All societies and cultures have concepts of, and often deep beliefs in, monsters. In the USA, <a href="https://nyupress.org/9781479815289/paranormal-america-second-edition/">religious scholars</a> found that in “a strictly numerical sense, people who do not believe in anything paranormal are the odd people out”.</p>
<p>Indigenous Australia is rich in monsters. Some exist in both the realm of stories and in people’s daily lives. One such example are Hairypeople. Much stronger and hairier than humans, it is believed that, since time immemorial, they have lived their lives alongside Indigenous Australians.</p>
<h2>Curiosity and intimacy</h2>
<p>They made their TV debut as Hairies in the TV series Cleverman (2016-17). In the series, Hairies come into the dystopian city, where they are hunted down, institutionalised, incarcerated and tortured (much like Indigenous people were in the past). </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/shedding-the-victim-narrative-for-tales-of-magic-myth-and-superhero-pride-60437">Shedding the 'victim narrative' for tales of magic, myth and superhero pride</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The Hairies are wonderful examples of what anthropologist Faye Ginsburg <a href="https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/var.12154">calls the “Indigenous uncanny”</a>. She contrasts this with the uncanny Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, associated with fear. The Indigenous uncanny, she says, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>is characterised by a different register […] shaped by a kind of curiosity about and intimacy with the other side.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/401775/original/file-20210520-17-1w2uw5z.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/401775/original/file-20210520-17-1w2uw5z.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/401775/original/file-20210520-17-1w2uw5z.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=353&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401775/original/file-20210520-17-1w2uw5z.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=353&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401775/original/file-20210520-17-1w2uw5z.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=353&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401775/original/file-20210520-17-1w2uw5z.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401775/original/file-20210520-17-1w2uw5z.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401775/original/file-20210520-17-1w2uw5z.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Tysan Towney in Cleverman.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), Screen Australia, Screen NSW</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Hairypeople are one of the few pan-Australian monsters. It seems they are known in one guise or another and under one or another name across the continent. (Yowie and Yahoo are two of the better known names). </p>
<p>In central Australia’s Tanami Desert, the traditional lands of Warlpiri people, Hairypeople are known as Pangkarlangu. Much like the Hairies in Cleverman, and in ways not dissimilar to zombies in movies, Pangkarlangu in the Tanami Desert are expressive of social concerns — across both time and space.</p>
<p>In the past, and in myths and songs, Pangkarlangu were understood as human-like but uncivilised. They did not perform ceremonies nor bury their dead. Worst of all, they were cannibals known to hunt and eat other monsters, other Pangkarlangu and humans, especially children.</p>
<h2>Changed lives</h2>
<p>Strikingly, as the lives of Warlpiri people changed with colonisation, so too did the lives of Pangkarlangu. </p>
<p>To give but one example: in the late 1940s and early 1950s, Warlpiri people were confined to a number of settlements close to (but not in) the Tanami Desert. One was called Lajamanu (back then Hooker Creek) in the northwest. </p>
<p>About 450 kilometres as the crow flies to the southeast, another was called Yuendumu.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/401776/original/file-20210520-19-11zinhl.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/401776/original/file-20210520-19-11zinhl.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/401776/original/file-20210520-19-11zinhl.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=780&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401776/original/file-20210520-19-11zinhl.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=780&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401776/original/file-20210520-19-11zinhl.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=780&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401776/original/file-20210520-19-11zinhl.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=980&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401776/original/file-20210520-19-11zinhl.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=980&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401776/original/file-20210520-19-11zinhl.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=980&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Pangkarlangu have appeared in books, such as this traditional Walrpiri Dreaming narrative.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Harper Collins</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Not only is there a vast distance between the two Warlpiri communities, but Lajamanu is on Gurindji country and Yuendumu is on Anmatyere country. This means the inhabitants of each respective community formed close relationships with different peoples and languages.</p>
<p>These new differences were amplified further by Lajamanu orientating towards Katherine and Darwin, in the Top End of the NT, as service centres and Yuendumu towards Alice Springs, in central Australia.</p>
<p>At Lajamanu, as academic <a href="https://www.bloomsburycollections.com/book/monster-anthropology-ethnographic-explorations-of-transforming-social-worlds-through-monsters/ch5-monster-mash-what-happens-when-aboriginal-monsters-are-co-opted-into-the-mainstream">Christine Nicholls reports</a>, Pangkarlangu continued to be talked about, they were painted in art, and they were regularly sighted when people went hunting or camping out bush. She describes one group of Warlpiri people “almost stumbling upon” an “an entire family of Pangkarlangu sitting in a circle on the ground having a picnic”. Pangkarlangu, she reports, “seem to be becoming increasingly domesticated, acting a little more like ‘whitefellas’.”</p>
<p>At Yuendumu, on the other hand, for a while at least, they faded into the realm of stories. Until 2013, that is, when a family of Pangkarlangu (a father, a mother and a child) were observed by members of the community — from a distance and over the course of a few days — to be making their way from the southeast towards Yuendumu and then into the Tanami Desert.</p>
<h2>A refaunation?</h2>
<p>A pervasive way to interpret this event was <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Monster-Anthropology-Ethnographic-Explorations-of-Transforming-Social-Worlds/Musharbash-Presterudstuen/p/book/9781350096257">suggested to me by my Warlpiri friend Kumanjayi Napangardi</a>. She understood the reemergence of the Pangkarlangu from the direction of Alice Springs, and beyond that, the Eastern seaboard, as a kind of refaunation — mirroring the reintroduction of locally extinct species from elsewhere. </p>
<p>Yuendumu is located adjacent to Possum Dreaming (ancestrally linking it to both possums the species and possum ancestors) but possums have been extinct there for decades. Warlpiri people now only encounter possums when they travel to the urban centres of southeastern Australia.</p>
<p>Near Yuendumu, on Warlpiri land, lies Newhaven Wildlife Sanctuary, a refuge for threatened mammals, including Mala (rufous hare wallaby) from New South Wales. Central Australia not only experiences one of the highest rates of mammalian extinctions — it also is home to a booming refaunation industry. The industry employs rangers, ecologists, biologists and others in caring for, observing and protecting threatened species before releasing them back into the wild. </p>
<p>Given this, why wouldn’t a formerly extinct monster return?</p>
<p>The phenomena of the Pangkarlangu at Lajamanu and at Yuendumu show us the monster heralds change as well as changing itself.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/160004/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Yasmine Musharbash received funding from the Australian Research Council (FT130100415) </span></em></p>In myths and songs, Hairypeople were understood as human-like but uncivilised. Different responses to them in two Warlpiri communities show how colonisation has changed these monsters too.Yasmine Musharbash, Senior Lecturer and Head of Anthropology, Australian National UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1552132021-03-08T13:35:53Z2021-03-08T13:35:53ZA year into the pandemic, the coronavirus is messing with our minds as well as our bodies<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/387617/original/file-20210303-14-1pt7xvk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C4193%2C2797&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">It's not a stretch to say asymptomatic spreaders unwittingly engage in zombielike behaviors. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/hordes-of-angry-walking-dead-zombies-royalty-free-image/908122164?adppopup=true">gremlin via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>COVID-19 has hijacked people’s lives, families and work. And, it has hijacked their bodies and minds in ways that they may not even be aware of. </p>
<p>As we see it, SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, is a sort of zombie virus, turning people not into the undead but rather into the unsick. By interfering with our bodies’ normal immune response and blocking pain, the virus keeps the infected on their feet, spreading the virus. </p>
<p>People typically think of zombies as the stuff of science fiction. But in the biological world, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/S0031-9384(03)00163-X">zombies are all over the place</a>, from the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1186/s12862-014-0166-3">Ophiocordyceps</a> fungus that perpetuates itself by zombifying ants; to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0023277">Toxoplasma gondii</a>, a single-celled parasite that completes its life cycle by leading rodents into the jaws of predators. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/S0031-9384(03)00163-X">Zombie viruses are also a real thing, influencing</a> their host’s behavior in ways that enhance the viruses’ <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.beproc.2004.06.010">evolutionary fitness</a>.</p>
<p>One of us is a <a href="http://www.athenaaktipis.org/">professor of psychology</a>. The other is <a href="https://evolutionmedicine.com/about-joe-alcock-author-of-this-blog/">an emergency physician</a>. Both of us are evolutionary medicine researchers. And we suggest to you that SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, is yet another zombie virus, a master manipulator operating under the radar. This pandemic may have unleashed a horde of the unsick: infected and unwitting victims of a manipulative virus. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="An image of the coronavirus." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/387651/original/file-20210304-14-q616d7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/387651/original/file-20210304-14-q616d7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=365&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/387651/original/file-20210304-14-q616d7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=365&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/387651/original/file-20210304-14-q616d7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=365&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/387651/original/file-20210304-14-q616d7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=459&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/387651/original/file-20210304-14-q616d7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=459&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/387651/original/file-20210304-14-q616d7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=459&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The novel coronavirus, which first appeared in China in late 2019.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/corona-virus-close-up-royalty-free-image/1212213050?adppopup=true">Radoslav Zilinsky via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>How the virus turns us into the unsick</h2>
<p>It is the unsick who spread the virus most readily. About 40% of those with SARS-CoV-2 are asymptomatic spreaders, never showing symptoms at all. And those who do show symptoms are <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-020-0869-5">most contagious in the two days before symptoms appear</a>. Why people don’t feel sick earlier – or sick at all – might be part of the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2009787117">evolutionary strategy of SARS-CoV-2</a>. </p>
<p>A look under the hood of the virus reveals more about that manipulative machinery. SARS-CoV-2 interferes with a person’s <a href="https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.08.18.256776">immune response</a>; this is why people don’t necessarily feel sick and withdrawn as they would in a typical viral infection. Instead, SARS-CoV-2 silences the body’s alarm signals that otherwise would orchestrate <a href="https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.08.18.256776">anti-viral defenses</a>. It blocks interferons, a set of molecules that help fight viruses. Interferon activity makes people feel more <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41423-020-0402-2">depressed and socially withdrawn</a> – so when the novel coronanvirus impedes interferon activity, mood is lifted, sociality is increased and you feel less sick. </p>
<p>The virus also <a href="https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.07.17.209288">decreases pain perception</a>. Normally, pain <a href="https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.psych.51.1.29">motivates us to hunker down</a> when we need to heal. But SARS-CoV-2 blocks this response by preventing <a href="https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.07.17.209288">the transmission of pain signals</a>. This is why people feel fine even when they are teeming with virus before the onset of symptoms. </p>
<p>At the same time, SARS-CoV-2 dampens the body’s response to infection. It <a href="https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.05.24.111823">hinders pro-inflammatory cytokines</a>, molecules that help spur the immune response. This too makes hosts feel better than they should. Typically, feeling sick helps our bodies prioritize healing by making us reduce our energy expenditure. With SARS-CoV-2, unsick hosts have the energy to do as much as they used to, maybe more. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/PSnSo9kYlH4?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">3D Animation: SARS-CoV-2 virus transmission leading to COVID-19.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>An evolutionary leg up</h2>
<p>How SARS-CoV-2 evolved to manipulate humans is still speculation. The virus could have first evolved in other mammals, like pangolins. There, it may have acquired its immune-evading, manipulative machinery before jumping to humans. </p>
<p>No intent or thought is involved; SARS-CoV-2 is not scheming to take over your body. This is simply evolution at work, nothing personal. The virus evolves because of variation and selection. And in a pandemic involving hundreds of millions of infections and trillions of viral replications, plenty of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.plrev.2005.11.002">genetic variants could give it an evolutionary leg up</a>. </p>
<p>More research is needed to determine whether new variants make people feel unsick for longer. That, of course, would make it even easier for the virus spread during the asymptomatic phase. For example, a paper in the Journal of Transnational Medicine reported that the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1186/s12967-020-02535-1">GZ69 variant</a> is associated with high shedding rates in asymptomatic patients, meaning that people are highly contagious even when they are feeling fine. </p>
<p>[<em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>.]</p>
<p>It’s possible that SARS-CoV-2 might make people feel even better than they would without infection from the virus. One study found people did not reduce their time out in public even when they had COVID-19 symptoms. If anything, they <a href="https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.04.19.20065219">went out more</a>. Any variant that does this clearly has an evolutionary advantage when it comes to transmission. Using surveys and social media data, <a href="https://www.cooperationintheapocalypse.org/">our research team</a> is now testing whether people are more social during their most infectious days. </p>
<h2>Things to consider</h2>
<p>We must take seriously the possibility that the virus is zombifying us – altering our behavior in ways that help perpetuate it. By keeping people feeling good when they are capable of spreading the virus, SARS-CoV-2 spreads under the radar, <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-coronavirus-escapes-an-evolutionary-trade-off-that-helps-keep-other-pathogens-in-check-140706">more like a sexually transmitted disease</a> than a respiratory virus. </p>
<p>Many of us have unwittingly acted as vehicles for its propagation, with stunning implications. Our behavior might not be in our own evolutionary interests. Instead, the unsick may be serving the virus.</p>
<p>Researchers often ignore the impact that viruses might have on our moods and behaviors. But like ants and rodents, humans are not exempt from the neural and behavioral hijacking that’s widespread in the natural world. </p>
<p>We believe that it is critical to consider the possible “anti-symptoms” of this virus: temporary reduction in pain, feeling more energetic than normal and perhaps even wanting to be around people more than usual. With all this in mind, here’s some advice, likely the most ironic you’ve heard in the last year: If you’ve been feeling surprisingly good the last few days, you might want to get a COVID-19 test.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/155213/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>SARS-CoV-2 is much like a zombie virus. It interferes with normal sickness behavior and blocks pain, turning its victims into unsick spreaders of the virus.Athena Aktipis, Associate Professor of Psychology, Center for Evolution and Medicine, Arizona State UniversityJoe Alcock, Professor of Emergency Medicine, University of New MexicoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1486142020-10-28T12:22:51Z2020-10-28T12:22:51Z3 things I learned from teaching students about horror pioneer George Romero’s movies during these scary times<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/365893/original/file-20201027-18-jegx9q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=98%2C71%2C2896%2C1877&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Filmmaker George Romero at the premiere of 'Survival of the Dead' in 2010. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/director-george-a-romero-and-zombies-attend-the-premiere-of-news-photo/99605569"> Ben Hider/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>I’m no fan of horror movies. At least I wasn’t until I moved <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NfbLcIhvRsc">from Hollywood</a> back to my hometown of Pittsburgh, where I met the legendary independent filmmaker <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-george-a-romero-made-humans-of-violent-brain-devouring-zombies-81107">George Romero</a>, best known as the inventor of the modern-day zombie and movies like “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0063350/">Night of the Living Dead</a>.”</p>
<p>I had avoided seeing George’s movies for two reasons. First, they’re scary. Second, when I was a teen, my mother had a role in a Romero film initially titled “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5l3tfxT_GA">Hungry Wives</a>.” After seeing some raw footage in which I saw a woman in the movie disrobe, I feared that my mother was naked in it. (Spoiler alert: She wasn’t.) </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/365934/original/file-20201027-19-9cjuz0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Two men pose for a photo" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/365934/original/file-20201027-19-9cjuz0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/365934/original/file-20201027-19-9cjuz0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=675&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365934/original/file-20201027-19-9cjuz0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=675&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365934/original/file-20201027-19-9cjuz0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=675&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365934/original/file-20201027-19-9cjuz0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=849&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365934/original/file-20201027-19-9cjuz0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=849&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365934/original/file-20201027-19-9cjuz0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=849&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Carl Kurlander (left) and George Romero in 2017.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Steeltown Entertainment Project</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This past year, I gained a deeper appreciation of his work while teaching “Making the Documentary: <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/23/travel/pittsburgh-horror-filmmaker-george-romero.html">George Romero and Pittsburgh</a>,” a course in which my students had access to the newly acquired <a href="https://romero.library.pitt.edu/">Romero Archives</a>.</p>
<p>Some students were big fans of the great filmmaker, who shot 14 movies in Pittsburgh. Others had no idea who he was. Together, we learned three important lessons about survival and the human condition. I believe they are especially important today because of the coronavirus pandemic and the damage it’s unleashing.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">An interview with filmmaker George Romero.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>1. He was a visionary</h2>
<p>Romero, who <a href="https://theconversation.com/george-romeros-zombies-will-make-americans-reflect-on-racial-violence-long-after-his-death-81583">died in 2017</a>, didn’t make just popular zombie flicks. His other films, which garnered less acclaim and profits, transcend horror movies.</p>
<p>Many of today’s filmmakers producing socially conscious hit thrillers, like “<a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/get-flips-night-living-dead-head-1084105">Get Out</a>” creator <a href="https://www.slashfilm.com/jordan-peele-interview-us/">Jordan Peele</a> and “<a href="https://www.kcrw.com/culture/shows/the-treatment/guillermo-del-toro-the-shape-of-water">Shape of Water</a>” creator <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/movies/movie-news/guillermo-del-toro-george-romero-created-an-entire-subgenre-in-cinema-199364/">Guillermo Del Toro</a>, credit Romero for pioneering this genre. </p>
<p>Take “<a href="https://www.shudder.com/blog/season-of-the-witch-and-the-dissatisfied-woman">Season of the Witch</a>,” the official name of that Romero movie my mother was in – fully clothed. It features a suburban housewife who dabbles in witchcraft to explore her feminist powers – and uses it to dispose of her abusive husband.</p>
<p>Another good example is “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077914/">Martin</a>,” Romero’s favorite. Romero shot it in a once-thriving steel town outside Pittsburgh. The titular main character, a young man who may or may not be a vampire, represents the threat of generational change to a community literally having the life sucked out of it. </p>
<p>Particularly prescient is “<a href="https://doi.org/10.7312/will17354-007">The Crazies</a>,” which tells the story of a mysterious virus that infects the citizens of Evans City, Pennsylvania, driving some of them mad. The government calls in the military and quarantines the town. It’s soon hard to tell who is crazy because of the virus and who went insane because of the circumstances. </p>
<p>The government ends up losing the vaccine that could save everyone. Let’s hope this isn’t a case of art predicting real life.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Trailer from ‘The Crazies,’ George Romero’s 1973 film about ‘madness unleashed by human error.’</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>2. He established a powerful metaphor for the human condition</h2>
<p>What makes Romero’s vision unique is that his worst monsters aren’t aliens or creatures menacing humanity. Instead, those <a href="https://risweb.st-andrews.ac.uk/portal/en/researchoutput/normality-is-threatened-by-the-monster-robin-wood-romero-and-zombies(541fbac2-588d-4d78-b296-a184cfa71d00).html">monsters are us</a>. </p>
<p>In “<a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/rep.2010.110.1.105?seq=1">Night of the Living Dead</a>,” strangers gather in a farmhouse. The fighting among the humans themselves leads to their demise as much as the attack of the undead in what is widely considered the <a href="https://www.scmp.com/culture/film-tv/article/2166113/first-zombie-movie-10-classic-horror-films-celebrate-night-living">first modern zombie flick</a>. Interestingly, Romero never used the term “zombie” in the script. He called the creatures “ghouls.” </p>
<p>When Romero shot “<a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/book/62828">Dawn of the Dead</a>,” as a hippie at heart he decided to use a local <a href="https://maps.roadtrippers.com/us/monroeville-pa/points-of-interest/dawn-of-the-dead-mall">shopping mall as a set</a>. It also served as a prop to make a statement about the mindless consumer culture that all Americans seemed trapped in – even in the afterlife. </p>
<p>For “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088993/">Day of the Dead</a>,” Romero converted an abandoned underground mine shaft in Wampum, a small Pennsylvania town about 40 miles from Pittsburgh, into a bunker. There, the last <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5749/j.ctt1pwt6zr">survivors of a zombie apocalypse</a> hunker down while the military and government officials fight with scientists trying to better understand the undead. Meanwhile, a zombie that scientists are trying to “train” seems more humane than the folks on whom the fate of our species rests. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">The ‘Day of the Dead’ trailer.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>3. He was a truly independent and maverick filmmaker</h2>
<p><a href="https://livingdead.fandom.com/wiki/George_A._Romero">Romero and nine of his friends</a> each initially pitched in US$600 in seed money to make “Night of the Living Dead.” The film later grossed more than <a href="https://m.the-numbers.com/movie/Night-of-the-Living-Dead-(1968)">$30 million</a>, on what according to many reports was a total budget <a href="https://livingdead.fandom.com/wiki/Night_of_the_Living_Dead">of only $114,000</a>.</p>
<p>But neither Romero nor his investors would pocket much of that bounty because of a dispute with the distributor. The movie became upon its release one of only a <a href="https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/92931/11-classic-films-public-domain">handful of films without copyrights</a>, because of a last-minute title change. (The original title was “<a href="https://indiefilmhustle.com/night-of-the-living-dead-copyright/">Night of the Living Flesh Eaters</a>.”) </p>
<p>Romero could have leveraged the unexpected fame that came without a fortune into a ticket to Hollywood. Instead, he stayed in Pittsburgh, working with low budgets and small crews and retaining creative control over his projects. </p>
<p>My students were inspired by tales of Romero’s ingenuity. For example, because Romero decided that zombies must walk slowly, he faced a problem with how the first zombie would catch up to one of the film’s protagonists in the first scene of “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BU9anY26fI">Night of the Living Dead</a>.”</p>
<p>When it turned out the car the production had borrowed had been in an accident, instead of having it fixed, Romero used the dent as an excuse to have the car hit the tree. The staged accident make it easy for the zombie to nearly catch – and terrify – her.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">A tribute to ‘Night of the Living Dead’ 25 years after its original release.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>An inspirational legacy</h2>
<p>After the pandemic turned my students’ lives into something out of a Romero movie, they found inspiration in how the horror pioneer made the most from what was around him. They kept interviewing subjects over Zoom and developed their own remote way of sharing footage and editing to complete their film. </p>
<p>[<em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>.]</p>
<p>Many of them now aspire to make films independently as Romero did and see where their imaginations take them without decamping to Hollywood. While steering clear of COVID-19, they are figuring out how to survive just as the heroes of his movies did.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/148614/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Carl Kurlander is on the advisory board of the George A. Romero Foundation. He and his students received grants to make this Romero and Pittsburgh documentary from the University of Pittsburgh where he teaches after a multi-decade career working as a screenwriter (St. Elmo's Fire) and TV writer/Producer (Saved By the Bell) in Hollywood. </span></em></p>Now that the whole world is echoing Romero’s films, everyone can learn from his legacy.Carl Kurlander, Senior Lecturer, University of PittsburghLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1295902020-01-10T08:11:35Z2020-01-10T08:11:35ZThe secret of Games Workshop’s success? A little strategy they call total global domination<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/309298/original/file-20200109-80153-1j0bao4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">'Wait till you see the army coming over the hill.'</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/houston-texas-usa-january-3-2020-1605514009">BoristheFrog</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In an era defined by online shopping and falling real incomes, the high street can seem like a morass of zombie companies, hauling their carcasses from one sales season to the next until someone puts them out of their misery. One honourable exception is Games Workshop, a company that makes its money by selling zombies instead, alongside wizards, space orcs and all other accessories for the dedicated fantasy gamer.</p>
<p>Had you invested £1,000 in the firm’s shares at the end of 2009, you would now be sitting on a pot of more than £25,000. The company is <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/jan/01/from-jd-sports-to-games-workshop-best-market-performers-of-decade">the best performing</a> FTSE250 retailer of the past decade – and second best performer overall. So what’s going on in those dungeons? What lessons can this impressive operator teach the rest of the high street?</p>
<p>Founded in London in the mid-1970s by Ian Livingstone and Steve Jackson – who would later became famous for co-authoring the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/apr/04/fighting-fantasy-game-books-charlie-higson-interview">Fighting Fantasy</a> choose-your-own-adventure books – Games Workshop evolved quickly in its first few years of existence. It went from manufacturing and distributing traditional board games to focusing on fantasy fare, above all Dungeons & Dragons, the cult role-playing game from America that would define the whole genre. </p>
<p>The company soon launched the <a href="https://www.games-workshop.com/White-Dwarf-12-month-sub-ENG">White Dwarf magazine</a>, which became a bible for fantasy gamers, and moved into manufacturing miniatures for wargaming under its Citadel Miniatures brand. It soon began to build its business around these miniatures and, to a lesser extent, the Warhammer tabletop fantasy game, which launched in 1983. By the mid-1980s, White Dwarf had stopped covering Dungeons & Dragons and other people’s games to solely concentrate on the Games Workshop universe. </p>
<h2>Let battle commence</h2>
<p>This narrow focus has essentially continued up to the present day. It is key to understanding the business. To investors and retail staff alike, the company has <a href="https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/zones-control">long referred to</a> its strategy as “total global domination”. It barely acknowledges the existence of competing games or miniatures, perhaps with good reason; it has no real competitors who can match its vertical integration in the marketplace. </p>
<p>Most other wargames manufactures are just cottage industries with no presence on the high street: the next most successful <a href="http://www.hoovers.com/company-information/cs/company-profile.corvus_belli_sl.254269f22ae6b2dc.html?aka_re=1#financials-anchor">achieves less than 2%</a> of Games Workshop’s £257 million turnover. The company’s stores stock only its own products, though it is more than happy to sell them elsewhere: 47% of sales <a href="https://investor.games-workshop.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/2018-19-Press-statement-final-1.pdf">come from</a> third-party retailers, while a further 19% are online. </p>
<p><strong>Games Workshop’s share price</strong></p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/309130/original/file-20200108-107255-yuypun.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/309130/original/file-20200108-107255-yuypun.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/309130/original/file-20200108-107255-yuypun.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=218&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/309130/original/file-20200108-107255-yuypun.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=218&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/309130/original/file-20200108-107255-yuypun.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=218&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/309130/original/file-20200108-107255-yuypun.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=274&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/309130/original/file-20200108-107255-yuypun.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=274&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/309130/original/file-20200108-107255-yuypun.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=274&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Google Finance</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>Staff have regularly <a href="https://investor.games-workshop.com/our-business-model/">described</a> the company as making the “best fantasy miniatures” in the world. Where most big Western retailers outsource manufacturing to contractors on the other side of the world, the firm makes almost everything at <a href="https://www.business-live.co.uk/commercial-property/games-workshop-agrees-deal-huge-17159245">its own factory</a> in Nottingham in the English Midlands, also the place of the company headquarters. </p>
<p>Games Workshop now has 500 stores worldwide – a fifth of them major outlets, while the rest are one-vendor operations like the one pictured below. Most of the bigger stores are in the UK, Europe and Australia, and total global domination has no room for passengers: loss-making stores <a href="https://investor.games-workshop.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/2014-15-Press-statement-final-website-final.pdf">are quickly</a> reorganised to make a profit, or closed. There are also a smattering of stores in North America and Asia, though the company has never achieved critical mass in those markets like it has in the UK. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/309265/original/file-20200109-80107-s9a90h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/309265/original/file-20200109-80107-s9a90h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/309265/original/file-20200109-80107-s9a90h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/309265/original/file-20200109-80107-s9a90h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/309265/original/file-20200109-80107-s9a90h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/309265/original/file-20200109-80107-s9a90h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=557&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/309265/original/file-20200109-80107-s9a90h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=557&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/309265/original/file-20200109-80107-s9a90h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=557&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Our man in Strasbourg.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/marc_buehler/10334123905/in/photolist-gKc616-dU7857-eHrcNJ-29tmApM-bEznDa-8ugTAa-dWb83t-8ugEiZ-2df86DD-cBJwmy-8ujXK5-8ujWss-8ugGBZ-dhNKW9-djTTn1-24BJcZJ-fxgLvf-25SxhQX-dPu47z-gZEmun-dPu4sr-kuJA3v-mQ9EYH-nvJAL7-mMH4XS-NUJZUZ-o9eFBA-kuL7cL-S2nsrv-j4RMqn-kuJ1qa-m7XdHd-R77Mc1-fx2kvR-MWz64F-p8nioL-kuJsXM-kUkuX1-FxigmT-gZDhaf-ehfbTt-e9L5KV-dVL4zB-gH5UTK-gZEkQM-bPUVhn-jWFhrr-8ugTb4-PqLsp2-dUcL8B">Marc Buehler</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It is clear from my own research that <a href="https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/zones-control">stores function</a> at least as much as clubhouses devoted to the hobby: collecting, painting and occasionally even gaming with the miniatures. Fans and customers obsess over both these figures and the complex fictional worlds in which the games are set. </p>
<p>Everything is built around two settings – one fantasy and one science fiction. You could legitimately accuse them of being derivative of the pop culture over the past half-century or so. But they function as fully realised, complex worlds <a href="http://henryjenkins.org/blog/2007/03/transmedia_storytelling_101.html">complete with</a> spin-off novels, comics, card games, computer games, and even a film – though <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1679332/">Ultramarines: A Warhammer 40,000 Movie</a> was hardly a classic. The logic is to give the dedicated fan so much to consume that there is no need, or indeed very much time, to bother with anything else. </p>
<p>One potential threat to this close relationship with customers in the past was the company’s approach to defending its intellectual property. Its legal department long had a reputation for zero tolerance, <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-21380003">attracting heavy criticism</a>, for example, for taking action to prevent an author from selling a book about space marines. My sense is that the company has become much less litigious since Kevin Rountree took over as CEO in 2015. </p>
<h2>Treasure chest required</h2>
<p>Buying into the Games Workshop hobby is not cheap, it should be said. You can <a href="https://www.games-workshop.com/en-GB/Start-Collecting-Space-Marines?_requestid=17072782">easily</a> pay over £50 for just a dozen plastic figures, for instance, plus another £25 for paints and brushes. This attracts <a href="http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/video-games/columns/criticalintel/10946-Games-Workshop-is-Dead-Long-Live-Games-Workshop">regular gripes</a> from both fans and the press, and is presumably integral to the company’s surging share price and <a href="http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/video-games/columns/criticalintel/10946-Games-Workshop-is-Dead-Long-Live-Games-Workshop">mainly</a> strong <a href="https://investor.games-workshop.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/2018-19-Press-statement-final-1.pdf">financial results</a>. </p>
<p>Yet steep prices are only viable if the product is good enough. The company has regularly rebooted and reinvented its own games and worlds over the years, though arguably they can never be well enough tested to satisfy competitive gamers. The complexity of each game system and the need to bring out new versions to sell more models tends to mean that one strategy <a href="https://www.belloflostsouls.net/2018/10/meta-gaming-dominant-strategy-is-bad-game-design.html">becomes too dominant</a>.</p>
<p>The company has also innovated in other ways – recently, for example, <a href="https://www.polygon.com/2019/9/12/20862740/citadel-contrast-paint-controversy-review">formulating</a> revolutionary new paints and painting techniques to make it easier for the customers to get great results with their figures. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/309301/original/file-20200109-80107-g6pide.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/309301/original/file-20200109-80107-g6pide.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/309301/original/file-20200109-80107-g6pide.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/309301/original/file-20200109-80107-g6pide.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/309301/original/file-20200109-80107-g6pide.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/309301/original/file-20200109-80107-g6pide.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/309301/original/file-20200109-80107-g6pide.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/309301/original/file-20200109-80107-g6pide.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Steady as she goes.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/boristfrog/253116413/in/photolist-onhG6-awko2u-awhEo8-awhEwD-awhESt-eETBB9-6NZiCM-4wunVy-4wqaXX-4wq5Dk-3titcW-HzGdy6-62X5Zv-c94ejh-fEj8zx-bwdJiK-Jmn5WM-62qALx-bw1Ve2-XdvVRj-Xdw42m-fEAEJ3-bwdKLt-62GuMc-onqMWL-qWoDwN-4wq3yV-4wuoM1-4wqh4p-4wun2J-4wu9sb-4wu8DN-91FDAg-6zEjLA-4wq2Y2-4wq9Q6-4wuct7-4wqeGn-4wq4B6-eEMu7R-4wqhMB-4wq7sR-4wq9g6-91JKXm-p9ptCT-91FDJH-6NZiBM-4NWCjo-4wuiu7-qnNpAg">BorisTheFrog</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Can the success story continue? There seems every reason to assume that it can. It might even benefit from the <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2019/12/5/20985330/ps4-sony-playstation-environmental-impact-carbon-footprint-manufacturing-25-anniversary">mounting concerns around</a> the carbon emissions from video gaming, and the need to <a href="https://theconversation.com/low-carbon-computing-is-needed-to-avoid-a-technological-collapse-93381">transition to</a> low-carbon computing. </p>
<p>Though Games Workshop certainly makes money from branded video games, being anchored in physical products and stores that offer a communal experience could be a good place to be in years to come. So long as you can save your prized miniature collection from extreme weather events, Warhammer 40,000 and Age of Sigmar will continue to be playable in a <a href="https://theconversation.com/fight-or-switch-how-the-low-carbon-transition-is-disrupting-fossil-fuel-politics-122376">post-carbon economy</a>. For a company that has done so well out of dystopian fiction, that would arguably be a fitting turn of events.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/129590/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ian Sturrock does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>How a bunch of wizards and goblins drove a 25-fold explosion in the share price.Ian Sturrock, Senior Lecturer in Game Design and Games Studies, Teesside UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1239602019-10-28T17:30:08Z2019-10-28T17:30:08ZZombie flu: How the 1919 influenza pandemic fueled the rise of the living dead<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/297817/original/file-20191020-56215-x8c06j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Did mass graves in the influenza pandemic help give rise to the living dead?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/zombie-crowd-walking-nighthalloween-conceptillustration-painting-454095508?src=EFxeCqTziXbkPOqA-Go6dA-1-2">Tithi Luadthong/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Zombies have lurched to the center of Halloween culture, with costumes proliferating as fast as the monsters themselves. This year, you can dress as a zombie prom queen, a zombie doctor – even a zombie rabbit or banana. The rise of the living dead, though, has a surprising link to another recurring October visitor: the influenza virus. </p>
<p>One hundred years ago, 1919 saw the end of one of the worst plagues in human history: the deadly <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/1918-pandemic-h1n1.html">1918-1919 influenza pandemic</a>. The pandemic was a true horror show, with <a href="https://bmcinfectdis.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12879-019-3750-8">50-100 million</a> people dying and millions more infected. The United States alone lost more people in the pandemic than it lost in all the 20th- and 21st-century wars, <a href="https://www.historyofvaccines.org/content/blog/spanish-influenza-pandemic-then-now">combined</a>. </p>
<p>This was no ordinary flu virus: It killed young adults in high numbers, and it came with grisly side effects, like massive bleeding from the nose, mouth and <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/health/2018-04-13/flu-pandemic-1918-what-happened-and-could-it-happen-again/9601986">ears</a>. It could <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK22148/">damage</a> the nervous and respiratory systems and could cause violent derangement, delirium and – in its aftermath – profound lethargy and suicidal <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/journal-plague-year-180965222/">depression</a>. </p>
<p>The pandemic turned communities into haunted landscapes. <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/journal-plague-year-180965222/">Coffins</a> ran out as bodies piled up everywhere. Stores, theaters and schools were closed, and wagons were pulled through the streets to collect corpses. Funerals were often impossible to organize, and across the country, mass graves were dug to accommodate the many dead. </p>
<p>A literature professor, I have written about the flu’s surprising connection to zombies, spiritualism and poems like T. S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land” in my new book, <a href="https://cup.columbia.edu/book/viral-modernism/9780231185752">“Viral Modernism: The Influenza Pandemic and Interwar Literature</a>.” </p>
<h2>The zombie connection</h2>
<p>How did the influenza pandemic link to the appearance of zombies? After all, the term “zombie” arrived in the United States largely through William Seabrook’s 1929 book <a href="https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2015/11/03/with-these-zombie-eyes-and-other-news/">“The Magic Island</a>.” Seabrook wrote, often in starkly racist terms, of various ceremonies, traditions and stories he had gathered in Haiti. He included an account of the zombie figure, which he described as a resurrected corpse raised from the dead by a master figure and forced to do enslaved labor. Depictions of such zombies soon found their way into <a href="https://www.filmsite.org/zombiefilms2.html">popular movies</a> like <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0023694/">“White Zombie”</a> (1932) or <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0026832/">“Ouanga”</a> (1936).</p>
<p>A different strain of zombie-like creatures, however, had emerged earlier in the work of horror writer <a href="http://www.hplovecraft.com/">H.P. Lovecraft</a>. These zombies anticipate the ones <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/George-A-Romero">George Romero</a> would later depict in films like <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0063350/">“Night of the Living Dead”</a>: bloody, lurching, disheveled corpses intent on infecting the living and hungry for human flesh. A perfect incubator for these “viral zombies” were the grisly experiences the influenza pandemic brought to every community. </p>
<h2>Lovecraft’s world of corpses</h2>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/297818/original/file-20191020-56234-1x3t0oc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/297818/original/file-20191020-56234-1x3t0oc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=535&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/297818/original/file-20191020-56234-1x3t0oc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=535&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/297818/original/file-20191020-56234-1x3t0oc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=535&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/297818/original/file-20191020-56234-1x3t0oc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=672&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/297818/original/file-20191020-56234-1x3t0oc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=672&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/297818/original/file-20191020-56234-1x3t0oc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=672&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Seminarians from St. Charles Borromeo of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia dig a mass grave at Holy Cross Cemetery sometime during Oct. 21-24, 1919, for victims of the flu pandemic. The photographer wrote in his journal that steam shovels eventually had to be utilized, presumably because of the vast number of bodies.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Catholic Historical Research Center of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In his hometown of Providence, Rhode Island, Lovecraft was surrounded by the pandemic’s ghastly atmosphere. As one local witness remembered, “all around me people were dying… . [and] funeral directors worked with fear… . Many graves were fashioned by long trenches, bodies were placed side by side”; the pandemic, the witness laments, was “leaving in its wake countless dead, and the living stunned at their loss” (letter by Russell Booth; Collier Archives, Imperial War Museum, London). </p>
<p>Lovecraft channeled this climate into his stories of the period – producing corpse-filled tales with infectious atmospheres from which sprang lurching, flesh-eating invaders who left bloody corpses in their wake. </p>
<p>In his story <a href="http://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/fiction/hwr.aspx">“Herbert West: Reanimator,”</a> for example, Lovecraft creates a ghoulish doctor intent on reanimating newly dead corpses. A pandemic arrives that offers him fresh specimens – and that echoes the flu scenes of mass graves, overworked doctors and piles of bodies. When the head doctor of the hospital dies in the outbreak, Dr. West reanimates him, producing a proto-zombie figure that escapes to wreak havoc on the town. The living dead doctor lurches from house to house, ravaging bodies and spreading destruction, a monstrous, visible version of what the flu virus had done worldwide. </p>
<h2>Infection, prejudice and the viral zombie</h2>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/297820/original/file-20191020-56242-3v9sc0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/297820/original/file-20191020-56242-3v9sc0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=376&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/297820/original/file-20191020-56242-3v9sc0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=376&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/297820/original/file-20191020-56242-3v9sc0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=376&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/297820/original/file-20191020-56242-3v9sc0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=472&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/297820/original/file-20191020-56242-3v9sc0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=472&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/297820/original/file-20191020-56242-3v9sc0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=472&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Nurses treat flu patients at Walter Reed Hospital during the height of the 1918-1919 flu pandemic.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/walter-reed-hospital-flu-ward-during-242820250?src=hFuX_stkZ0sr7HA9qUu9Vw-1-2">Everett Historical/Shutterstock.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In other episodes and stories, Lovecraft’s proto-zombies suggest an additional thread of prejudice that runs through the zombie tradition, one fueled by widespread fears of contagion during the pandemic. </p>
<p>Even before the outbreak, Lovecraft believed that foreign hordes were infecting the Aryan race generally, weakening the <a href="https://areomagazine.com/2019/03/05/lovecrafts-otherworldly-xenophobia/">bloodlines</a>. These xenophobic anxieties weave their way into his stories, as contagion and pandemic-soaked atmospheres blend into racist fears of immigrants and nonwhite invaders. Indeed, many of his stories are unwitting templates for how prejudicial fears may be problematically amplified at moments of crisis. Such fears are evoked and often critiqued in later depictions of viral zombie hordes, such as the infectious monsters of Romero’s “Night of the Living Dead” and the film’s <a href="https://medium.com/@DavidA.Punch/night-of-the-living-dead-horrors-of-reality-manifested-in-the-flesh-46722bb15e8a">subtle commentary on race</a>, when the white police force mistakes the main African American character for a viral zombie. </p>
<h2>Our fears as monsters</h2>
<p>Lovecraft’s proto-zombies also provided a strange compensation for some of the pandemic’s worst memories. Like the flu virus, these monsters consumed the flesh of the living, spread blood and violence, and acted without cause or explanation. Lovecraft assures his readers that these monsters are far worse than anything they saw in World War I or in the pandemic – the defining tragedies of the era. Unlike the virus, though, these monsters could be seen, stopped, killed – and reburied. Every decade seems to need its own zombie, and Lovecraft offered his readers a version that spoke deeply to the anxieties of his moment. </p>
<p>While you may not be prepared for a zombie apocalypse this October, you can still prepare for the coming flu season. Along with your zombie banana costume, be sure to get your flu shot.</p>
<p>[ <em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>. ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/123960/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Elizabeth Outka works for the University of Richmond and has received a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities. </span></em></p>The 1918-1919 flu claimed millions of lives worldwide. Could it also have given birth to the viral zombie?Elizabeth Outka, Professor of English, University of RichmondLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1231622019-09-09T05:57:25Z2019-09-09T05:57:25ZThe new Seachange is a sad case of Zombie TV: when your favourite programs come back from the dead<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/291415/original/file-20190909-175710-mucch2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=5%2C0%2C1272%2C720&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">William McInnes and Sigrid Thornton in the original series. Could a new Seachange possibly capture the romantic tensions of the original?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">ABC</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In Stephen King’s Pet Sematary, caretaker Jud Crandall warns against burying bodies in the old Indian burial ground. “They don’t come back the same”, the old man drawls, with a mix of desperation and horror in his voice. </p>
<p>If only television executives heeded this same advice.</p>
<p>Around the globe, recent reboots of some long loved, long dead, television programs highlight the unimaginative strategies studios are employing to out-manoeuvre each other in the race for higher ratings. Hitting our screens again of late have been the exhumed corpses of <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8179162/">Beverly Hills 90210</a>, <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4093826/?ref_=fn_al_tt_2">Twin Peaks</a>, <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0367279/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Arrested Development</a>, <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0106179/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">X-Files</a>, <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0157246/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Will & Grace</a> and <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094540/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Roseanne</a>, among others. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/291409/original/file-20190909-175682-18cj1qf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/291409/original/file-20190909-175682-18cj1qf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=250&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/291409/original/file-20190909-175682-18cj1qf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=250&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/291409/original/file-20190909-175682-18cj1qf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=250&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/291409/original/file-20190909-175682-18cj1qf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=315&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/291409/original/file-20190909-175682-18cj1qf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=315&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/291409/original/file-20190909-175682-18cj1qf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=315&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The revival of Beverly Hills 90210 has nothing on the original’s hair styles.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Fox</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>I’ve dubbed this “Zombie TV”. It’s the type that could have only been created by television programmers adhering to The Simpsons adage: “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOTyUfOHgas">We’ve tried nothing and we’re all out of ideas</a>”.</p>
<p>Zombie reboots are old shows with the same cast and same locations. It’s like we’ve all just hitched a ride in <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088763/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Doc Brown’s DeLorean</a> and teleported 20 years into the future. The latest Australian example is the beloved Seachange.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/curious-kids-are-zombies-real-79347">Curious Kids: Are zombies real?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Not much of a sea change</h2>
<p>Originally on the ABC but now switched to Nine, this raising from the dead takes place 20 years after the original – but things don’t seem to have developed much for our characters in the years since. </p>
<p>Laura Gibson (Sigrid Thornton) is still dispensing her own brand of justice, Bob Jelly (John Howard) is still on the scrounge, and Heather Jelly (Kerry Armstrong) is still off with the pixies.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/yoVZ-eo4bRI?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>The underlying problem here is that a Channel Nine audience is very different to an ABC one – not least of all in age. The <a href="https://tvtonight.com.au/2016/11/the-average-age-of-tv-viewers.html">average age</a> of an ABC viewer is 66; the average age of the Nine viewer is a sprightly 50. </p>
<p>Watching this reboot, it feels like writer Deb Cox has reacted to this audience change by writing in a much more light and flippant (if that’s possible) tone. </p>
<p>The comic aspects are at the fore while the drama (or melodrama) has been downplayed. Every scene has a comedic touch to it, so much so that the characters are more caricatures of their former selves. The brooding and at times poignant scenes of the original, such as Laura’s romances with Diver Dan (David Wenham) and Max Connors (William McInnes) have little place at Pearl Bay now – unless each ends with slapstick.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/291417/original/file-20190909-175710-zsef9j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/291417/original/file-20190909-175710-zsef9j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/291417/original/file-20190909-175710-zsef9j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/291417/original/file-20190909-175710-zsef9j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/291417/original/file-20190909-175710-zsef9j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/291417/original/file-20190909-175710-zsef9j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/291417/original/file-20190909-175710-zsef9j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">The heart of Seachange has been replaced with slapstick.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Nine</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>But the main issue is that what was fresh and relevant in 1998 isn’t in 2019. </p>
<h2>Times have changed</h2>
<p>Twenty years ago, many dreamed of escaping the city commute and chaos for the peaceful surrounds of a small town by the water. But high unemployment, sky-rocketing ocean view house prices, limited educational opportunities and reduced entertainment options have <a href="https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/6016548/city-congestion-and-rural-population-decline/?cs=14246">taken the gloss off small-town living.</a></p>
<p>Many of those who made the change previously <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/when-a-sea-change-goes-wrong-20071129-gdrpci.html">are now returning</a> to the cities for these exact reasons. </p>
<p>So what is the place of a Seachange reboot after the zeitgeist has passed?</p>
<p>Seachange always hooked itself on the one premise that life away from the cities was so much better. Everything else in it was pretty much (beloved) stock standard melodrama, and the reboot hasn’t shifted to reflect current societal issues. Without that hook is the attraction of the show just another nostalgia kick?</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/291413/original/file-20190909-175678-thlseq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/291413/original/file-20190909-175678-thlseq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=281&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/291413/original/file-20190909-175678-thlseq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=281&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/291413/original/file-20190909-175678-thlseq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=281&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/291413/original/file-20190909-175678-thlseq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=353&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/291413/original/file-20190909-175678-thlseq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=353&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/291413/original/file-20190909-175678-thlseq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=353&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Are we all just hoping for a return of Diver Dan?</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">ABC</span></span>
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</figure>
<h2>Mass grave robbery</h2>
<p>Seachange, so far, seems unlikely to achieve the ratings success it is chasing. It premiered as the highest rating drama of 2019 with <a href="https://mumbrella.com.au/seachange-reboot-premieres-to-787000-metro-viewers-to-become-highest-rating-drama-of-the-year-592470">787,000 metro viewers</a>. By week two, <a href="https://mumbrella.com.au/seachange-dips-to-533000-metro-viewers-for-second-outing-fails-to-bring-nine-a-tuesday-night-win-593436">a third</a> of those viewers had been lost. </p>
<p>But it could still lead to mass grave robbery of Australian television programming. For television executives Zombie TV is a very enticing prospect. Australian networks need to abide by <a href="https://www.screenaustralia.gov.au/fact-finders/television/industry-trends/content-regulation">strict quotas on new drama</a>, and original TV drama is risky – if it doesn’t work, heads can roll. </p>
<p>Bringing back an old, popular show, carries less risk – people tune in for nostalgia’s sake, at the very least. And, if it fails after that? Then the execs can claim, “It was huge 20 years ago, who knew it wouldn’t be now?” The failure is disowned. </p>
<p>Zombies have their origins in the <a href="https://mysteriousuniverse.org/2014/08/the-mysterious-real-zombies-of-haiti/">voodoo religion of Haiti</a>, where corpses were believed to be revived by black magic, becoming mindless creatures, or for slave labour or to carry out curses tormenting the living.</p>
<p>Maybe TV executives need to keep that in mind, too.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/123162/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Daryl Sparkes is affiliated with the Australian Labor Party and the National Tertiary Education Union. </span></em></p>Zombie TV shows are reboots with the same casts and locations. Seachange is the zombie virus’s latest victim but the zeitgeist has moved on and the show’s comic tone grates.Daryl Sparkes, Senior Lecturer (Media Studies and Production), University of Southern QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1056152018-10-30T08:31:56Z2018-10-30T08:31:56ZHalloween: five film and TV picks to watch on a dark scary evening<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/242782/original/file-20181029-76387-tcvwrb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">bbernard via Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>As All Hallow’s Eve approaches, October is the time of year to embrace the macabre – and what better way to relax after trick or treating than to gorge yourself on a few scary movies. With cinema screens likely to be dominated by the <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2018/9/10/17838130/halloween-movie-review-jamie-lee-curtis-michael-myers-david-gordon-green-tiff-2018">long-awaited sequel</a> to John Carpenter’s classic Halloween, here are five of the best recent scary titles currently available for streaming: four horror stories to rattle your bones and a zombie comedy to coax you back out from behind the sofa.</p>
<h2>Calibre (2018)</h2>
<p>Ever since Robin Hardy’s seminal 1973 film <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/the-wicker-man">The Wicker Man</a>, British horror films have explored the relationship between town and country as a source of cinematic nightmares and this is no exception.</p>
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<p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/jun/29/calibre-review-highlands-horror-story-overcomes-cliche-to-bag-a-netflix-release">Calibre</a> begins with two friends, father-to-be Vaughan and thrill-seeker Marcus, travelling from Edinburgh to the Highlands of Scotland to hunt deer. They arrive in a small village and head to the pub, where they meet the local villagers, including Logan, the leader of the community. Rather than relying upon supernatural scares, the story is driven by the actions of the two self-centred friends, and the reactions of the community to what they do.</p>
<p>What is effective about Matt Palmer’s film is the way he exploits the tradition of the potential threat of small, isolated villages and their inhabitants. Do the community worship some pagan god, or are they simply hardworking people watching their village gradually succumb to economic decline?</p>
<p>Gripping and original, Calibre is a tense, effective thriller that ratchets up the tension through a taut, logical sequence of cause and effect that tips gradually over into the arena of nightmares.</p>
<h2>The Haunting of Hill House (2018)</h2>
<p>Turn off your phone, grab some snacks and settle down for ten hours of the finest horror drama in decades. Shirley Jackson’s seminal novel <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2018/oct/26/haunting-hill-house-netflix-family-horror">The Haunting of Hill House</a> has been filmed on numerous occasions, most successfully by Robert Wise for his 1963 masterpiece of suspense and understatement, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2010/oct/22/haunting-wise-horror">The Haunting</a>.</p>
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<p>This new version from Mike Flanagan (Gerald’s Game) is more of a new work inspired by the original source. It reimagines characters from the book as members of the Crain family, who lived in the house for a summer, leaving under mysterious and terrifying circumstances. Ultimately it is the family that is haunted, traumatised by the presences lurking within the corridors of Hill House.</p>
<p>Flanagan is fast becoming <a href="https://www.slashfilm.com/mike-flanagan-is-one-of-the-best-modern-horror-directors/">one of the most significant voices</a> in contemporary horror. He builds an overall atmosphere of Gothic dread, using lavish, beautifully designed sets and roving camerawork to place the audience in the house with engaging and sympathetic characters who you really care about.</p>
<p>Treat yourself, because this series will be talked about as a masterpiece of TV horror for years to come.</p>
<h2>The Alienist (2018)</h2>
<p>Serial killer stories have become a staple of horror tales. <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/book-review-the-eyes-dont-have-it-the-alienist-caleb-carr-little-brown-pounds-1699-1374683.html">Based on a novel</a> written by American historian and author Caleb Carr and directed by <a href="https://unitedkingdom.diplomatie.belgium.be/nl/nieuws/interview-jakob-verbruggen-director-bbc-series-fall">Jakob Verbruggen</a> (Black Mirror), <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/on-demand/2018/04/19/alienist-review-winningly-grotesque-deliciously-macabre-period/">The Alienist</a> tells the story of the pursuit of a serial killer in New York by a group of amateur investigators led by the mysterious Dr Lazlo Kreizler (Daniel Bruhl), who is by profession an alienist – the forerunners of today’s psychiatrists or psychologists.</p>
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<p>Kreizler is called in to use his understanding of the human psyche to help the corrupt New York police force find a brutal killer, who has murdered a young boy and mutilated the body. Accompanied by a newspaper illustrator, John Moore (Luke Evans), and Sara Howard (Dakota Fanning), the strong, independent secretary to the chief of police, they must discover the identity of the murderer before they kill again.</p>
<p>While the story may sound very familiar, what makes The Alienist so effective is the unusual New York setting, the focus upon psychological rather than criminal investigation, and the interweaving of the fictional story with real-life characters. The series has a plot that twists and turns, never fully revealing itself until the precise moment it needs to.</p>
<h2>1922 (2017)</h2>
<p>Stephen King is known as the master of horror, but there’s far more to King than scares. The most acclaimed King adaptations, Misery (1990) The <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/filmreviews/10532526/The-Shawshank-Redemption-review.html">Shawshank Redemption</a> (1994) and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/News_Story/Critic_Review/Observer_review/0,,141530,00.html">The Green Mile</a> (1999) aren’t tales that revolve around killer clowns or haunted cars. Rather they are character dramas with elements of the uncanny, such as the unnatural calm surrounding Tim Robbins’ Andy Dufresne in Shawshank, or John Coffey’s ability to absorb the evil of the world in The Green Mile.</p>
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<p>Similarly in <a href="https://variety.com/2017/film/reviews/1922-review-stephen-king-1202568940/">1922</a> – directed by <a href="https://www.screenaustralia.gov.au/the-screen-guide/p/zak-hilditch/25728/">Zak Hilditch</a> (Transmission) – Nebraska farmer Wilfred James (Thomas Jane) narrates the story of how he murdered his wife, dumping her body down a well on his property. From this basic premise develops a tense, dust-bowl drama focusing on the investigation into the disappearance and the consequences of the murder for both James and his son.</p>
<p>At the heart of King’s prose is his ability to create characters you can relate to in a fully drawn and instantly recognisable world. Wilfred becomes a fully rounded individual whose fate you come to care about in spite of the awful thing he does, drawing you into the story world where the action grips from the first moment.</p>
<h2>Santa Clarita Diet (2017)</h2>
<p>It wouldn’t be Halloween without a zombie flick and – if you need a breather from all these serious horrors – look no further than <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2018/03/barry-review-hbo-santa-clarita-diet-netflix-comedy-murder/556196/">this zombie comedy</a>, one of the sharpest and funniest horror-inflected series of recent years.</p>
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<p>Suburban couple Sheila and Joe Hammond are real estate agents whose lives are turned upside down when Sheila turns into a zombie. With the help of their daughter Abby and nerdy teenager-next-door Eric, they have to set aside their world of bake sales and dinner parties in favour of murder and mutilation.</p>
<p>The tone is set in the first episode as Sheila (played by Drew Barrymore), in the process of becoming a zombie, interrupts a viewing of an upmarket suburban home she is selling to extravagantly throw up – an outrageous sequence which sets up the love-it-or-leave-it style of the show.</p>
<p>Undeniably the it gory televisions – but in a way that is deliberately excessive and designed to be fun. Think of legendary British horror comedy <a href="https://www.metacritic.com/movie/shaun-of-the-dead">Shaun of the Dead</a> and you’re in the right ballpark. A strong, gutsy comedy with a strong message about non-conformity and being yourself, Santa Clarita Diet is an absolute delight. If you can get past that first scene that is.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/105615/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Simon Brown does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Four spine chillers and a slapstick zombie comedy film to get you back out from behind the sofa.Simon Brown, Associate Professor of Film and Television, Course Leader BA Film Cultures, Kingston UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1046532018-10-11T13:45:50Z2018-10-11T13:45:50ZThe Walking Dead: how apocalyptic dramas help us navigate turbulent times<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240220/original/file-20181011-154561-1npp025.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AMC</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>These are politically chaotic times, but looking at the current crop of TV drama, viewers might agree the signs have been there for a while. Writers have long been obsessing over the end of the world, pumping out apocalyptic visions that eager audiences have been lapping up. Think dark alternative histories, catastrophic disasters – natural and political – plagues, vampires and zombies. Lots of zombies.</p>
<p>Amazon brought us <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Man-High-Castle-Season/dp/B00RWYM2GM">The Man in the High Castle </a> (2015-ongoing), the BBC gave us <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08ghxqb">SS-GB</a> (2017), Channel 4 served up the <a href="https://www.hulu.com/press/show/the-handmaids-tale/">Handmaid’s Tale</a> (2017-ongoing), Netflix produced <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4421578/">Containment</a> (2016), a remake of Belgian drama <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02tc919">Cordon</a>, and last but certainly not least, there is Fox’s <a href="https://www.amc.com/shows/the-walking-dead">Walking Dead</a> (2010-ongoing). All are spectacular, horrifying, gripping visions detailing the collapse of the world as we know it.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240229/original/file-20181011-154573-1siijnz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240229/original/file-20181011-154573-1siijnz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=363&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240229/original/file-20181011-154573-1siijnz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=363&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240229/original/file-20181011-154573-1siijnz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=363&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240229/original/file-20181011-154573-1siijnz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=456&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240229/original/file-20181011-154573-1siijnz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=456&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240229/original/file-20181011-154573-1siijnz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=456&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">The Handmaid’s Tale is a chilling vision of power, religion and female oppression which some believe is already being echoed in America.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Hulu</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
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<h2>It’s not about the zombies</h2>
<p>The Walking Dead series has been among the most popular and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2018/oct/09/dead-show-walking-is-the-walking-dead-limping-towards-doom-or-glory">returned for a ninth season</a> on October 8. If its sister show <a href="https://www.amc.com/shows/fear-the-walking-dead">Fear the Walking Dead</a> is taken into account, this represents an astonishing 13 series depicting the collapse of civilisation. That’s a lot of end-of-the-world drama, but as Jungian psychologist <a href="http://www.marie-louisevonfranz.com/en/homepage.html">Marie-Louise von Franz</a> noted:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>People who are emotionally gripped by a story or an idea repeat it endlessly and cannot stop talking about it or telling and retelling it… It is a means of [releasing] a strong emotional impact.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Drama matters because it sketches out in the imagination a sense of what is possible. It’s never about the zombies. In the popular imagination lurks the possibility of nuclear annihilation, pandemics, misogyny and repression, religious fundamentalism, extreme nationalism and environmental collapse. Humanity has moved from being at the mercy of nature to having the power to destroy it. No wonder our speculative drama is so dark.</p>
<p>Apocalypse narratives in themselves are nothing new. Popularly they are associated with excessive visions of destruction and death, but the word “apocalypse” is derived from the Greek word apokalypsis (the opening word, in fact, of <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/christianity/texts/revelation.shtml">Revelation 1:1</a>), which simply means “uncovering” or, as the book itself is called: Revelation. Apocalypse literature is about revealing what has been hidden.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240230/original/file-20181011-154577-18pvn4m.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240230/original/file-20181011-154577-18pvn4m.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=382&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240230/original/file-20181011-154577-18pvn4m.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=382&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240230/original/file-20181011-154577-18pvn4m.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=382&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240230/original/file-20181011-154577-18pvn4m.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240230/original/file-20181011-154577-18pvn4m.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240230/original/file-20181011-154577-18pvn4m.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">The Walking Dead is about a group of survivors struggling after the zombie apocalypse.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AMC</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
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<p>The biblical Book of Revelation is only one of a number of texts reaching back into pre-Christian times, coinciding with periods of great political and cultural upheaval, which continue to be written well into the medieval period. There are Coptic, Syriac and even Islamic versions of apocalypse all arising in times of crisis and change.</p>
<h2>Post apocalypse</h2>
<p>Most of these writings contain a degree of pessimism and a concern with the end of history and cosmic cataclysm, but they are really there to encourage the oppressed. Apocalypse scholar <a href="https://divinity.yale.edu/faculty-and-research/yds-faculty/john-j-collins">John J Collins</a> points out that most apocalyptic writing entails a challenge to view the world in a radically different way. It is a revolutionary imagination designed to generate visions not of what is, but of what might be. The real focus of apocalypse literature isn’t about the spectacle of collapse, but about what comes after.</p>
<p>As religious studies academic <a href="http://www.mille.org/people/CV-Oleary.html">Stephen O'Leary</a> explains in his essay in the <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=syjuuAEACAAJ&dq=he+Encyclopaedia+of+Apocalypticism+Volume+3&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi78YbL1fndAhWSZlAKHUydDY0Q6AEIMjAC">Encyclopedia of Apocalypticism</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Modern media, particularly television and film, occupy a role in our society analogous to religious narratives, art and drama in the pre-modern period… as a source of theatre for the collective imagination.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>But writers of our contemporary apocalypse narratives seem to be suffering from a failure of that imagination. They are adept at the first part of traditional apocalypse narratives detailing what is wrong, with accompanying visions of the old world being swept away, but what about the second part? What comes next? What else?</p>
<p>If we accept that they are reflecting a concern with the end of the world as we know it, what should there be in its place? Isn’t it time we had some stories that show hints as to how we overcome, resist or even avoid such things? An occasional chink of light, or possibility of hope for an outcome that doesn’t feature survivors endlessly killing each other over dwindling resources would be welcome.</p>
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<p>The Walking Dead dramas have been moving in that direction. The season four finale of spin-off show Fear the Walking Dead saw the survivors set off on a mission to help other people and foster a sense of community – a marked change of direction from the “survival at any cost” narrative up until that point.</p>
<p>Halfway through season eight of The Walking Dead, a character called <a href="http://walkingdead.wikia.com/wiki/Georgie_(TV_Series)">Georgie</a> was introduced, who gave the Hilltop survivors community a book called A Key to the Future, which explained how to build medieval technology (such as windmills and aqueducts) to help the community become more self sufficient. Again, quite a shift from battling over the leftovers of civilisation that had marked the series up until that point.</p>
<p>Season 8 focused on a storyline of emancipation, where various communities banded together to break free from The Saviours, a group who demanded tithes of supplies with threats and extreme violence. The first episode of the ninth season of The Walking Dead was called <a href="http://walkingdead.wikia.com/wiki/A_New_Beginning_(TV_Series)">A New Beginning</a>, with trailers suggesting the new series will explore how or if those remaining can find a way to live together peacefully.</p>
<p>Or perhaps not. Audiences for this undead franchise have been falling (though still high in comparison to rival shows), so maybe viewers are still more interested in violence and high-octane action than any notions of lasting peace and working together. Audiences may revel in visions of “burning it all down”, but eventually thoughts must turn to what comes next. Let’s hope the writers are ready to embrace a true revolution of the imagination.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/104653/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Catriona Miller does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The real focus of end-of-days narratives isn’t the spectacle of collapse, but about what comes after and how it challenges our world view.Catriona Miller, Senior Lecturer in Media, Glasgow Caledonian UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/967862018-05-18T01:36:20Z2018-05-18T01:36:20ZThe Australian zombie horror Cargo is burdened by its own gravitas<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/219302/original/file-20180517-155558-ezzvn0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">In Cargo, Martin Freeman plays Andy, a man who has to kill his wife after she turns into a zombie and travels across country with baby daughter Rosie on his back.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source"> Addictive Pictures, Causeway Films, Head Gear Films</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Since the 1970s, some of the best horror films have been made in Australia. Something about the vastness of the continent, and its geographical remoteness from the northern and western hemispheres, lends itself to the kind of existential explorations of alienation that underpin the best examples of this genre. </p>
<p>Peter Weir’s <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071282/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">The Cars That Ate Paris</a> (1974) remains one of the great horror comedies, viciously lampooning small-town Australian life. Russell Mulcahy’s <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087981/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Razorback</a> (1984) fully embraces the surreal-gothic potential of the Australian landscape, and the intense terror of <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0416315/?ref_=fn_al_tt_2">Wolf Creek</a> (2005) must have caused at least a few backpackers to reconsider their trips here.</p>
<p>But only one zombie film of note springs to mind, the Spierig Brothers’ brilliantly inventive <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0339840/?ref_=ttls_li_tt">Undead</a> (2003). Ben Howling and Yolanda Ramke’s recent <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3860916/">Cargo</a>, released in Australian cinemas and to Netflix today, is another one. Whereas the Spierig Brothers approached the genre with energy and mirth, Cargo is a much more sombre affair, favouring dramatic realism and an understated visual approach over the garishness more typical of the films of the genre.</p>
<p>The result is mixed. The first half hour is brilliant, slowly building up tension and suspense, but once the narrative kicks into full gear, the film becomes far less satisfying. It’s not that it’s a bad film, it is moderately enjoyable, but given the renowned cast – it stars Martin Freeman, Susie Porter (excellent in a limited role) and legend of the Australian screen, David Gulpilil – and the potential of the genre in an Australian context, it could have been a lot better.</p>
<p>The narrative follows Andy (Freeman), a man who has to kill his wife Kay (Porter) after she turns into a zombie in the opening part of the film, as he travels across country with baby daughter Rosie on his back (his “cargo”) and befriends a teenage girl, Thoomi (Simone Landers). His wife bites him before he dies, so he knows he has only 48 hours remaining as a human, after which he will become one of the intestine eaters (there is an appropriately gross amount of blood and guts in this).</p>
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<p>His mission, in his remaining time as a human, is to get Rosie to the group of Aboriginal people to whom Thoomi is also returning. This group have returned to a “traditional” way of living off the land, and are best equipped to repel the zombies. They are presided over by cleverman Daku (Gulpilil), who appears from time to time looking ghostly and saying little. There’s a touch of the noble savage myth about this whole subplot, and the images of blackfella magic are frequently accompanied by mystical-sounding music.</p>
<p>The most interesting encounters in the film are between Andy and Toomi and the several brain-eaters that populate the Australia of the future, but, unfortunately, these are few and far between. Instead, the action is driven by their encounters with several stock Australian film characters.</p>
<p>There’s the ethereal-woman in the outback, Lorraine, who seems too delicate to live in such an environment (played by Caren Pistorius in a wooden performance). There’s tough-as-nails Etta (Kris McQuade), an outback school teacher with a heart of gold. And there’s delusional tyrant Vic (played by Anthony Hayes, in a one-note and stilted performance) who is preparing to control Australia’s natural resources once order is restored. He gets his kicks doing really bad things like kidnapping Indigenous people and keeping them locked in cages in order to attract zombies who he then massacres for sport.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/219300/original/file-20180517-155594-ra76w9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/219300/original/file-20180517-155594-ra76w9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/219300/original/file-20180517-155594-ra76w9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=244&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/219300/original/file-20180517-155594-ra76w9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=244&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/219300/original/file-20180517-155594-ra76w9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=244&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/219300/original/file-20180517-155594-ra76w9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=306&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/219300/original/file-20180517-155594-ra76w9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=306&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/219300/original/file-20180517-155594-ra76w9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=306&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Caren Pistorius as the ethereal-woman in the outback, Lorraine.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source"> Addictive Pictures, Causeway Films, Head Gear Films</span></span>
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<p>These are cliches, indeed, but this shouldn’t matter for this kind of genre film. And yet, with Cargo it does. Because it seems to be straining so hard for a sense of gravitas (built through its dramatic verisimilitude and realist style), these cliches become terribly visible and disrupt the viewer’s pleasure. It’s like the filmmakers have deliberately not embraced the ludicrous potential of the subject matter and there is thus an uncomfortable tension between its sombre tone, the absurdity of its premise, and the flatness of its cliched narrative.</p>
<p>The American zombie film, emerging in its contemporary form with the George Romero films beginning with <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0063350/?ref_=nv_sr_1">Night of the Living Dead</a> (1968) is generally considered a critique of consumerism in the post-Vietnam era, and the most interesting element of Cargo is its attempt to reimagine the genre in an Australian context that reflects anxieties about the land and its destruction.</p>
<p>The film features scenes, for example, of abandoned fracking sites, and the fact that the whole thing becomes a kind of battle between a power-hungry mining type and Indigenous people could have provided grounds for incisive social and political commentary. But the treatment is unnecessarily sentimental, and it doesn’t feel like there’s any genuine emotional potency by the end. Even the sweeping panoramic shots of the Australian landscape feel contrived and unimpressive, almost like stock drone footage taken from an online tourist commercial.</p>
<p>Alas, Cargo seems like a made-for-Netflix movie – it makes sense, in this context, that it is premiering on Netflix – watchable but also forgettable, after its dazzling opening third. It was developed, furthermore, from a short film that went viral, and like a lot of films made from shorts (or from Saturday Night Live sketches), it feels like it lacks the legs to sustain the length of a feature.</p>
<p>Cargo is worth watching, particularly for fans of horror cinema, but its aesthetic will be best served, I suspect, by the small screen.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/96786/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ari Mattes does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In Cargo, zombies roam Australia and Aboriginal people living off the land are best equipped to repel them. The first half hour is brilliant but the film becomes far less satisfying.Ari Mattes, Lecturer in Media Studies, University of Notre Dame AustraliaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/943482018-04-09T13:33:45Z2018-04-09T13:33:45ZWhy zombie slugs could be the answer to gardeners’ woes<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/213391/original/file-20180405-189795-oosh69.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Slugs are voracious feeders</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Slugs_NL.jpg">Apdency</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Slugs and snails are the bane of almost every vegetable planting gardener and farmer. Slugs in particular have voracious appetites and are relentless in eating stems, leaves and shoots. No wonder gardeners have sought any means to control the spread of this crop killer. Unfortunately, the most common response – slug pellets – can have a terrible effect on other wildlife. One alternative is the parasite <em>Phasmarhabditis hermaphrodita</em>, a nematode worm which naturally kills slugs and snails. </p>
<p>Until recently, we had little idea why this parasite was so effective. Our <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29499346">recent research</a>, published in Behavioural Processes, shows that after <em>P. hermaphrodita</em> infects the slug, it takes control over its behaviour, essentially transforming it into a zombie. By delving further into how this parasite takes control of the slug’s behaviour, we can gain a better understanding into the molecular intricacies of mind control and even how to control the behaviour of slugs en masse.</p>
<p>Slugs are notably very hard to control because they can move deep into the soil and produce a tremendous number of offspring. Control methods that have tended to focus on slug pellets can be washed away easily and are <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/blog/2013/jul/10/slug-pesticides-metaldehyde-drinking-water">highly toxic</a> to a range of other wildlife. For decades, these pellets have contained methiocarb and metaldehyde, both of which can be harmful to the environment. Methiocarb has now <a href="http://www.fwi.co.uk/arable/eu-votes-to-ban-methiocarb-slug-pellets.htm">been banned</a> and the use of metaldehyde around waterways is under strict regulated use.</p>
<p>The <em>P. hermaphrodita</em> parasite on the other hand is an organic and effective alternative for controlling slugs. When added to the soil the parasites will hunt, infect and kill any slugs they find within <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09583159309355306">21 days</a>. Then the nematodes reproduce on the cadaver and go in search of any slugs that previously escaped them. There are 108 species of nematodes that infect slugs and snails. But unlike others, <em>P. hermaphrodita</em> is highly specific and does not affect other invertebrates such as insects or earthworms.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/213384/original/file-20180405-189816-45404s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/213384/original/file-20180405-189816-45404s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213384/original/file-20180405-189816-45404s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213384/original/file-20180405-189816-45404s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213384/original/file-20180405-189816-45404s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213384/original/file-20180405-189816-45404s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213384/original/file-20180405-189816-45404s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">P hermaphrodita.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Adult_Herphroditic_female_nematode_P._hermaphrodita.jpg">Peter Andrus</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
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<p>Our research also showed that the nematode worm <em>P. hermaphrodita</em> has the remarkable ability to control the behaviour of slugs. Ordinarily, when in the presence of parasitic worms, slugs sense danger and slither away in fear of being fatally infected. But when slugs are already infected, they seem to be attracted to areas where the parasite is present and will happily remain in an area where they risk further infection.</p>
<p>By directing the slugs towards more parasites, <em>P. hermaphrodita</em> lead the slugs to their death, after which the nematodes can feast on the carcass and reproduce. We had <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09583157.2016.1185513?journalCode=cbst20">previously shown</a> that several slug species avoided <em>P. hermaphrodita</em> but were very surprised to see that several other species, when infected, were attracted to the nematodes. This behaviour was caused specifically by <em>P. hermaphrodita</em> but not other nematodes.</p>
<h2>Its all in the serotonin</h2>
<p>To understand exactly how these nematodes were controlling the slug’s behaviour, we began a drug-based experiment, in which we fed uninfected slugs the antidepressant fluoxetine (Prozac). <a href="https://beta.nhs.uk/medicines/fluoxetine/">Fluoxetine</a> increases the level of serotonin, the chemical signal or “neurotransmitter” that regulates mood in many animals. Amazingly, these drugged slugs were attracted to the nematode-infested soil in the same way as slugs infected by the parasite.</p>
<p>We also found that nematode-infected slugs fed cyproheptadine, a drug which does the opposite of prozac and blocks serotonin, were no longer attracted to the nematodes. All of this suggests <em>P. hermaphrodita</em> manipulates serotonin signalling in the slug’s brain to change its behaviour.</p>
<p><em>P. hermaphrodita</em> isn’t alone in this behaviour and many parasites have evolved to control the mind and behaviour of their hosts. Protozoa such as <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1690701/"><em>Toxoplasma gondii</em></a> make infected rats lose their fear of cats. A fungus called <em>Ophiocordyceps spp.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/meet-the-enemy-of-killer-fungus-that-turns-ants-into-zombies-21398">takes over ants</a> and causes them to climb up trees so the fungus can better disperse its spores. <a href="https://www.wired.com/2014/09/absurd-creature-of-the-week-disco-worm/">Trematode flatworms</a>
are masters of manipulation, with the ability to control the behaviour of a number of organisms.</p>
<p>While the evidence supports the idea that <em>P. hermaphrodita</em> controls its hosts by affecting neurotransmitters such as serotonin, <em>T. gondii</em> interferes with production of another neurotransmitter, dopamine, to change the <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1690701/">behaviour of rats</a>. We also know that <a href="http://www.pnas.org/content/94/11/5939.full">injecting serotonin</a> into crustacean brains can mimic the behavioural changes caused by acanthocephalan worm parasites. And the parasite <em>Euhaplorchis</em>, alters the balance of a killifish’s serotonin and dopamine, causing it to <a href="http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/276/1659/1137">conspicuously attract</a> the attention of feeding birds. Only by reaching the bird’s gut can the parasite lay its eggs.</p>
<p>Our results suggest that by changing the levels of serotonin in healthy slugs, we can replicate the behavioural changes caused by <em>P. hermaphrodita</em> infection. Similarly, we can also reverse the behavioural changes of infected slugs to mimic uninfected members of their species. </p>
<p>Further investigation could lead to a better insight into the molecular intricacies of mind control of not just these nematodes but other parasites too. Ultimately, we could use this knowledge to influence and direct the behaviour of infected slugs. We could make them move en masse to areas of our choosing by manipulating their serotonin levels, and in so doing eradicate their threat and appetite.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/94348/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Robbie Rae receives funding from BASF Agricultural Specialities Limited, which manufactures parasite-based slug control products.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sally Williamson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The nematode that can turn slugs into zombies.Robbie Rae, Lecturer in Genetics, Liverpool John Moores UniversitySally Williamson, Lecturer in Neurobiology, Liverpool John Moores UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/940692018-03-29T11:40:34Z2018-03-29T11:40:34ZBring on the zombie apocalypse: five reasons why survival game Fortnite is a runaway success<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/212347/original/file-20180328-109172-hyko7y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Epic Games</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>“<a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/2018/3/27/17163280/fortnite-battle-royale-save-the-world-explained">Fortnite</a>,” says explainer website Vox, “is kind of like <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/minecraft-explained-2017-2">Minecraft</a> meets <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/tvandradioblog/2010/nov/05/the-walking-dead-episode-one">The Walking Dead</a> – with a bonus <a href="https://www.epicgames.com/fortnite/en-US/buy-now/battle-royale">Battle Royale</a> attached.” Seven years in the making, Epic Games’ 2017 launch – a zombie survival game available across most console and mobile platforms – has captured the imaginations of players worldwide.</p>
<p>Fortnite is divided into two game types: Battle Royale, a free, online arena where 100 players compete to be the last player or team on the battlefield, and Save the World, an offline story-driven campaign that must be purchased. It is the former that has attracted the attention of players and fans, with the number of <a href="https://www.epicgames.com/fortnite/forums/battle-royale/royale-with-cheese/71320-fortnite-battle-royale-community-faq">online communities</a> growing by the day.</p>
<p>A wide range of design decisions could be attributed to Fortnite’s success, but I’d like to focus on understanding the play experiences that entice players to keep on playing. By examining Fortnite through game analysis tool <a href="https://www.cs.northwestern.edu/%7Ehunicke/MDA.pdf">the Mechanics, Dynamics and Aesthetics (MDA) Framework</a> – an academically developed means to assess the design of experiences in games – we can identify the experiences on offer to players.</p>
<p>Fortnite offers something different for a whole range of players and the way they like to play games. This is what is known as the “aesthetics” of the game, which explains the emotional responses that players have as a result of play. These principles help to move the conversation from the abstract “games are fun” type of assessment to more concrete judgements about player experiences. In the context of Fortnite, using the MDA Framework, five aesthetics are at play which help to define its success: sensation, narrative, challenge, fellowship and pastime.</p>
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<h2>High five</h2>
<p><strong>Sensation</strong> concerns the sense of pleasure derived from an experience that offers something unfamiliar to players. But Fortnite shares its range of “mechanics” – actions available to the player – with many other games. Shooting big guns, for example, is a common point-and-click experience popularised in many games, such as <a href="https://doom.com/en-us/">Doom</a> and <a href="https://www.lifewire.com/quake-free-game-download-for-pc-812171">Quake</a>.</p>
<p>Massive multiplayer online games have been around for decades, with <a href="https://worldofwarcraft.com/en-us/">World of Warcraft</a> the best known. Fortnite’s building system, which allows players to construct forts and defensive walls, is not dissimilar to that in Minecraft. <a href="https://playbattlegrounds.com/main.pu">PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds</a> (PUBG), Fortnite’s closest competitor within the Battle Royale genre, has had success in its own right with multiple awards.</p>
<p>So if Fortnite is not the first game to offer these characteristics, how does it stand out as a superlative gaming experience? It can be argued that this comes from the game’s feel: handling the survival hysteria of the game while forgiving players’ lack of precision in shooting; providing security for master-crafters who have taken time to master the art of building; allowing breathing space to form strategies; and creating a cartoon style that reminds players to enjoy the post-apocalyptic environment. This could only be achieved with rigorous testing during development. </p>
<p>Play sessions of Fortnite embody <strong>narrative</strong> – each game session has its own unique, player-centric story. One player holding down a fort with their teammates using an assorted arsenal of weapons is different to that of the sole wanderer gathering wood to build a sky bridge. Yet both types of players may feel similar levels of enjoyment and satisfaction in their accomplishments. This sense of satisfaction is what encourages players to play again and create new narratives.</p>
<p>The <strong>challenge</strong>, or set of obstacles to overcome, has little to do with Fortnite’s environment. A threatening atmosphere and difficult-to-master building techniques provide the only difficulties from the game’s perspective. The real challenge is the player’s understanding and use of available space and resources and their level of skill. There is a steady learning curve to each player action – movement, shooting, building, resource management – and their relationship to each other within a tense play session.</p>
<p>Mastery of such a system requires extensive time and effort, but these higher levels of competence are rewarded with social stature within the game, such as costumes and body armour that suggest a certain level of skill and experience.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/212357/original/file-20180328-109175-1mzbxi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/212357/original/file-20180328-109175-1mzbxi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=327&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212357/original/file-20180328-109175-1mzbxi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=327&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212357/original/file-20180328-109175-1mzbxi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=327&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212357/original/file-20180328-109175-1mzbxi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212357/original/file-20180328-109175-1mzbxi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212357/original/file-20180328-109175-1mzbxi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">At the beginning of Fortnite’s Battle Royale game, players must jump off the airborne battle bus to start their adventure.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Epic Games</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There is no denying that Fortnite features some form of <strong>fellowship</strong>, a community of active participants. Game modes such as “Duo” and “Squad” allow players to team up with their friends or other players online. A hierarchy of skill recognises the “best-of-the-rest” as they rise to the top of the leaderboards. Curated videos and livestreams connect people with a shared interest in the game. This community presence has undoubtedly played a massive role in ensuring Fortnite’s recent success, and will continue to define the game’s meteoric trajectory so long as it is kept hydrated with stimulation.</p>
<p>Finally, Fortnite reinforces the mantra of games as a <strong>pastime</strong> – people are willing to put time and concentrated effort into playing it. This can also be determined by their consumption of wider networks related to the game itself, such as videos and livestreams, blogs and forums.</p>
<h2>Free no-risk fun</h2>
<p>We also cannot forget the free-to-play nature of Fortnite’s Battle Royale mode in encouraging players to adopt and stay. Beyond investing their time, there is little commercial risk for players when choosing to play the game. This has worked with other games, too – the limited-time free-to-play approach was instrumental in the success of soccer video game <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ut1BIsCby2c&feature=youtu.be">Rocket League</a>.</p>
<p>Like all games, Fortnite will have its life cycle and then eventually retire to the annals of gaming folklore. Players and online personalities will continue to gun down zombies, fight over supply drops and construct pillars of vantage until someone becomes the very last last-player-standing.</p>
<p>But what it will leave behind is a recipe for success by being self-aware about where it stands in its gaming landscape, and how to harness the design of systems and play to foster sustainable player communities that continue to appreciate and enjoy the experience. The zombie battles will be running for a good while yet.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/94069/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrew James Reid does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>This massive online game shares many characteristics with other big hitters, but Fortnite has its own special recipe for success.Andrew James Reid, Research Associate, Glasgow Caledonian UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/815832017-07-27T02:01:22Z2017-07-27T02:01:22ZGeorge Romero’s zombies will make Americans reflect on racial violence long after his death<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/179844/original/file-20170726-29425-a9c4no.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Annual 2010 zombie march in Madrid, an homage to George A. Romero.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Paul White</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>“What’s your zombie apocalypse survival plan?” </p>
<p>The question invites the liveliest discussions of the semester. I teach a course on social movements in fiction and film at West Virginia University, where I also conduct research on <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/politics-and-gender/article/racializing-gender-public-opinion-at-the-intersection/E97F06AF207D264FDE550A864A0EEB1E">race</a> and <a href="https://t.co/tMn93l5VQU">gender</a> politics in the United States. </p>
<p>George Romero’s first film, “Night of the Living Dead,” is on the syllabus. The film was groundbreaking in its use of horror as political critique. Half a century later, Romero’s films are still in conversation with racial politics in the United States, and Romero’s recent death calls for reflection on his legacy as a filmmaker. </p>
<h2>Disquieted times</h2>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/180242/original/file-20170728-17792-1r05vqr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/180242/original/file-20170728-17792-1r05vqr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/180242/original/file-20170728-17792-1r05vqr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=581&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180242/original/file-20170728-17792-1r05vqr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=581&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180242/original/file-20170728-17792-1r05vqr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=581&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180242/original/file-20170728-17792-1r05vqr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=730&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180242/original/file-20170728-17792-1r05vqr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=730&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180242/original/file-20170728-17792-1r05vqr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=730&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Newark, N.J. Rioting erupted in the predominantly black area of Newark’s central ward in July 1967.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Jeffrey Jerome Cohen, an English professor and <a href="https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/monster-theory">monster theorist</a> at George Washington University, <a href="https://www.academia.edu/3999660/Undead_A_Zombie_Oriented_Ontology_">notes</a> that “Like all monsters, zombies are metaphors for that which disquiets their generative times.”</p>
<p>Romero shot “Night of the Living Dead” in 1967, when Americans’ attention was focused on powerful televised images of race riots in cities like Newark and Detroit, and on the Vietnam War, the likes of which were <a href="http://yearofthelivingdead.com/">new to broadcast news</a>. Romero reimagined scores of bleeding faces, twisted in rage or vacant from trauma, as the zombie hoard. He filtered public anger and anxieties through the hoard, reflecting what many viewed as liberals’ rage and disappointment over a lack of real social change and others saw as conservatives’ fear over disruptions in race relations and traditional family structures. This is the utility of the zombie as a political metaphor – it’s flexible; there is room enough for all our fears.</p>
<p>In “Night of the Living Dead,” an unlikely cross-section of people are cornered in a farmhouse by a zombie hoard. They struggle with each other and against the zombies to survive the night. At the end of the film, black protagonist Ben Huss is the sole survivor. He emerges from the basement at daybreak, only to be mistaken for a zombie and shot by an all-white militia. The militiamen congratulate each other and remark that Huss is “another one for the fire.” They never realize their terrible error. Perhaps they are inclined to see Huss as a threat to begin with, because he is black.</p>
<p>At the start of Romero’s next film, “Dawn of the Dead,” in which another unlikely bunch faces off against zombies in a shopping mall, police surround a public housing building. One officer remarks on the unfairness of putting blacks and Hispanics in these “big-ass fancy hotels” and proceeds to shoot residents indiscriminately, not distinguishing between the living and the undead. </p>
<p>The officers are shooting to restore the “natural order” in which the dead stay dead. But their actions also restore the prevailing social order and the institutions that create and reinforce racial inequality.</p>
<h2>Zombie revival</h2>
<p>In my class, I connect these scenes of dehumanization to contemporary racial politics, using them as a springboard for conversations about racially motivated police violence and the Black Lives Matter movement. These discussions focus on the zombie as a dehumanized creature.</p>
<p>In returning from the dead, zombies lose their human essence – their agency, critical reasoning capacities, empathy and language. As Cohen <a href="https://www.academia.edu/3999660/Undead_A_Zombie_Oriented_Ontology_">writes,</a> “Zombies are a collective, a swarm. They do not own individualizing stories. They do not have personalities. They eat. They kill. They shamble. They suffer and they cause suffering. They are dirty, stinking, and poorly dressed. They are indifferent to their own decay.” Zombies retain a human form, but lose their individuality and are dehumanized in their reanimation.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/180243/original/file-20170728-17792-1hkbp4l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/180243/original/file-20170728-17792-1hkbp4l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/180243/original/file-20170728-17792-1hkbp4l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=435&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180243/original/file-20170728-17792-1hkbp4l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=435&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180243/original/file-20170728-17792-1hkbp4l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=435&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180243/original/file-20170728-17792-1hkbp4l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=547&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180243/original/file-20170728-17792-1hkbp4l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=547&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180243/original/file-20170728-17792-1hkbp4l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=547&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Film director George A. Romero in Mexico City in 2011.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Marco Ugarte</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Minority victims of police shootings are often portrayed in the media as dangerous, animalistic and even monstrous – meaning they too are <a href="http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2014/08/11/339592009/people-wonder-if-they-gunned-me-down-what-photo-would-media-use">stripped of their basic humanity</a>. <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1207/s15327957pspr1003_4">Social psychologists</a> argue that perceptions of humanity are a critical part of social cognition – the way we process or think about other people and social settings. When we see people or groups as less than human, predictable consequences arise. Romero’s films tune us in to our own potential for dehumanization.</p>
<h2>Zombie psychology</h2>
<p><a href="http://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev-psych-010213-115045?journalCode=psych">Dehumanization</a> relaxes our moral restrictions on doing harm to others and ultimately facilitates <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022103112002284">violence</a> against them. When people see members of a group as an undifferentiated “hoard,” they’re susceptible to the same error as the militiamen in “Night of the Living Dead.” When they couple dehumanization with hatred, resentment or fear, they become like the resentful police officer in “Dawn of the Dead.” Dehumanization of black Americans underpins the violence perpetrated against them in Romero’s films and in America today.</p>
<p>Dehumanization isn’t confined to police violence. <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0146167216675334">New research</a> shows that dehumanization of Muslims and Hispanics underlies support for restrictive immigration policies and a border wall. It also undercuts support for aid to refugees. </p>
<p>In my own research, I show that political candidates are often dehumanized in <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/10/31/here-are-3-insights-into-why-some-people-think-trump-is-a-monster/?utm_term=.1a8eea6a8fbb">political discourse</a> and <a href="https://qdr.syr.edu/discover/browse/QDR:10079">campaign imagery</a>. This work suggests that monsters plague our elections and governance processes more broadly.</p>
<p>Romero will be best remembered for giving the zombie a place in mainstream American culture, but he also gave us a warning about human psychology and critical insights into racial politics in the U.S. For this reason, his work will continue to have a revered place on my syllabus.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/81583/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Erin C. Cassese does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Romero’s ‘Night of the Living Dead’ and ‘Dawn of the Dead’ will be remembered among the first films to use horror as a form of political critique.Erin C. Cassese, Associate Professor of Political Science, West Virginia UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/811072017-07-17T15:04:30Z2017-07-17T15:04:30ZHow George A. Romero made humans of violent brain-devouring zombies<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/178435/original/file-20170717-6049-159cek4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/horror-zombie-455928670?src=a3hw-SZGS3D1Vpqczhb3bA-5-59">Viktor Petrovitch/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Godfather of the zombie film genre, George A. Romero’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/jul/17/george-a-romero-director-night-of-the-living-dead-zombies">death at 77-years-old</a> has undoubtedly been a sudden and tragic moment for horror fans the world over. Not least because it came only a few days after the news that the American film director began seeking financing for the latest instalment in his “dead” series, “<a href="http://bloody-disgusting.com/news/3445715/george-romero-reveals-road-dead-details/">Road of the Dead</a>”. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/178474/original/file-20170717-6084-1rd5i1y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/178474/original/file-20170717-6084-1rd5i1y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178474/original/file-20170717-6084-1rd5i1y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178474/original/file-20170717-6084-1rd5i1y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178474/original/file-20170717-6084-1rd5i1y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178474/original/file-20170717-6084-1rd5i1y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178474/original/file-20170717-6084-1rd5i1y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">George A. Romero.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/george-romero-romeros-land-dead-premiere-165667037?src=-aMvdV3lHxK4TnW9FE47og-1-1">The Everett Collection/Shutterstock</a></span>
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<p>Romero was a true master of the horror film, and has often been credited as having <a href="http://www.cnbc.com/2017/07/16/george-a-romero-father-of-zombie-movies-dies-at-77.html">created the modern zombie genre</a>. It is a testament to the legacy of Romero’s “dead” series – which started with “<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0063350/?ref_=nv_sr_2">Night of the Living Dead</a>” in 1968 – that the zombie figure, which has a long and troubled history, going back to <a href="https://theconversation.com/pride-prejudice-and-the-mutation-of-zombies-from-caribbean-slaves-to-flesh-eaters-54996">slavery in the West Indies</a>, has come to be associated so strongly with one man’s oeuvre.</p>
<p>These days, the zombie has turned from the shuffling, flesh-guzzling monsters that first roamed the streets on that fateful night in 1968, to less gory, almost human creatures. US televison series <a href="https://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/izombie/">iZombie</a>, for example, which features a sentient zombie medical examiner, Olivia Moore, distinguishes between its thinking zombies and those who revert to primal, brain-eating beasts, affectionately referred to as “Romeros”. </p>
<p>Zombies like Olivia aren’t scary. And even more violent shows like <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1520211/">The Walking Dead</a> demonstrate ways that zombies can be controlled, or manipulated, while humans attempt to live some kind of normal life. At one point in the series, the group manage to ironically make a home in an abandoned prison, while zombies press against the fences outside.</p>
<p>But without Romero’s zombies, this modern outbreak could never have happened. </p>
<h2>An independent triumph</h2>
<p>Even those unfamiliar with horror films may recognise the iconic line, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYR3dorshwA">“They’re coming to get you, Barbara!”</a>. The words are childishly intoned by a young man to his increasingly annoyed sister upon their arrival at a creepy Pennsylvania cemetery.</p>
<p>Unaware that the dead really have started to rise from their graves and stalk the living for their flesh, this apparently harmless moment of irreverent humour marks <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GiOd5Cm1LDo">the beginning of Night of the Living Dead</a> – to this day one of the most influential horror films ever made. </p>
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<p>Produced with little more than US$100,000, the film went on to gross millions, and totally reshaped the landscape of independent film-making in the process. It also kick-started the career of a director who would contribute many other gems to the horror canon, from the bio-weapon nightmares of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZyHyp7hmmsA">The Crazies (1973)</a> – <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7w9uWFIMBs">remade in 2010</a> – to the psycho-sexual backwater vampire in <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4SwXSiGpCxc">Martin (1978)</a>, and Stephen King’s screenwriting debut, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owdnnaNs2RI">Creepshow (1982)</a>. </p>
<p>But, more importantly, it refashioned the shuffling, possessed zombie <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=BCHfBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA225&lpg=PA225&dq=zombies+1930s&source=bl&ots=1vP-l2UjAg&sig=vhQGYPS2ola8ufqQDPBF5SceuWU&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwislZHCkpDVAhXEAsAKHeiaCyA4ChDoAQg3MAY#v=onepage&q=zombies%201930s&f=false">of the 1930s and 1940s</a> as a cannibalistic, unstoppable “force majeure”; a monster more in tune with the late capitalist times. These were creatures that were <a href="http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2010/05/george-romero">more than mere flesh-eaters</a>, Romero’s zombies communicated and made plans, and would eventually learn to think and feel.</p>
<h2>Our zombies, ourselves</h2>
<p>More expertly, perhaps, than any before him, Romero managed to use the horror genre to tune into social issues. It is well-known now that the casting of black actor Duane Jones as lead character Ben in Night of the Living Dead was a fortuitous event, and not necessarily an <a href="http://www.thewrap.com/night-living-dead-casting-cult-classic-20545/">attempt to politicise the film</a>. But the closing images of Ben burnt on a pyre alongside the zombies he has been mistaken for is indicative of a social and racial awareness the director would <a href="http://www.thewrap.com/night-living-dead-casting-cult-classic-20545/">expand on in later films</a>. </p>
<p>In 2005’s <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0418819/?ref_=nv_sr_1">Land of the Dead</a>, for example, features the character <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDuORNjFJJ4">Big Daddy</a>, a black gas station owner who leads a zombie revolution against the privileged humans who live in the Fiddler’s Green outpost. </p>
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<p>Despite following a similar formula to Romero’s first film – a group of survivors trapped by zombie hordes they must fend against – the sequels that followed “Night” were very different. They developed aspects of the zombie narrative that have been further explored and continue to be exploited by contemporary films, TV shows, <a href="https://www.wired.com/2012/06/geeks-guide-seanan-mcguire/">novels</a>, and even books on topics as varied as <a href="http://press.princeton.edu/titles/10305.html">neuroscience</a> and the <a href="http://press.princeton.edu/titles/9702.html">economy</a>. Romero created monsters that blurred the line between human and zombie. These were no longer just reanimated corpses, craving the flesh of their former kin, they were the very start of a new society. </p>
<p>Romero’s zombies are our future, if not our present; they are metaphors for a <a href="http://www.salon.com/2017/04/30/its-the-end-of-the-world-and-we-know-it-scientists-in-many-disciplines-see-apocalypse-soon/">humanity living in the end times</a>. Their abject and instinct-driven qualities remind us of the perishability and transience of life. The zombies’ endless hunger is like the physiological drives that dominate our existence, but also mirror the current neoliberal principles of the Western World. And their doom is akin to the inevitable demise of the human race in view of planetary crises like climate change.</p>
<p>Though now we may have lost the horror genius that was Romero, his dead will walk among us for many years to come.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/81107/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Xavier Aldana Reyes does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The world will be a less scary place without the don of the dead.Xavier Aldana Reyes, Senior Lecturer in English Literature and Film, Manchester Metropolitan UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.