How to make a ZOMBIE A Zombie WARNING

How to make a ZOMBIE! A Zombie WARNING: Do Not Attempt this at home without adult supervision I Want Your Brain

The Background • Human muscles are controlled by neurons (nerve cells) called axons. An Axon

Nerve Impulses • Axons carry electro chemical impulses as waves of alternating sodium (Na+), and Potassium (K+) ions across a membrane. • After a neuron fires however, it must recharge itself by pumping the Na+ and K+ back to where they started. • This is the Sodium / Potassium pump and uses up to 85% of the body’s metabolic energy

Sodium Potassium Pump

• Voodoo practitioners from the Caribbean isolated an unusual poison found in the pufferfish called Tetrodotoxin pufferfish Enter the Pufferfish

Tetrododotoxin • Tetrodotoxin works by shutting-down the Sodium / Potassium pump of axons controlling your voluntary muscles causing paralysis, and usually death. • However, in small doses applied to the skin, only paralysis results, and since the body uses 85% of it’s energy for the sodium / potassium pump, the victim’s oxygen needs are only a fraction of what they used to be.

Buried Alive Someone poisoned this way would not be able to move, would only breathe a couple of times a minute and would have an undetectable heartbeat. They would appear dead Accordingly, they would be promptly buried.

Slavery! • After being buried, those people responsible for the poisoning would return and dig-up the unfortunate victim. • They would be taken to a different island, and when they recovered, be sold into slavery.

The Warm Welcome Home • Needless to say, if the victim managed to escape or buy his/her freedom and return home, the victim's relatives would be quite shocked since the victim was believed dead. • Many believed that the person had risen from the dead…hence the legend of the zombie was born.

Voodoo PR • Some voodoo practioners would poison victims to “prove” their powers. • They would stand over their victims performing various rituals until the person revived. It would appear to be the result of the witchdoctor’s powers. Great PR

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