{http://www.news.com.au/technology/science/naturalist-explains-how-the-zombie-apocalypse-would-collapse-after-just-one-week-thanks-to-mother-nature/story-fn5fsgyc-1226745779626}

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Comment by Kane on December 18, 2013 at 11:42pm

Well by parasite I mean anything that uses a host which includes viruses as they use a host to replicate and transmit themselves.

A puppet is neither living nor dead.

An undead is neither living nor dead nor nonliving.

A natural zombie is an organism parasite or virus or something of that nature that controls a living human or else takes over and controls the body of a living human while usually removing the hosts sentience. Zombies are not actually dead, only no longer sentient, vegetables. The human body is a puppet a set of levers and pulleys controlled by the sentience residing in the brain. When someone becomes a zombie that sentience is ejected and the virus or parasite takes its place in control of the body.

Comment by El Lofto on December 17, 2013 at 5:45pm

Some interesting points here.I am of the view however that the 'zombie apocalypse' to coin a phrase will come via a virus as opposed to a parasite.Hence my interest in the above article.I see more a combination of the 28 Days scenario combined with the traditional view of the cannibalistic zombie.Also the dead are not necessarily living or raised.. but more walking ,their past memories gone,though the Romero series had a different view on this which he continued to expand through the franchise.

Comment by Kane on December 17, 2013 at 2:22am

Yeah anything that literally raises the dead must be supernatural in nature as that's impossible to do and also the supernatural is impossible and why its only in movies and such.

However a virus or other parasite that uses the human body as a host and also to transmit itself thereby creating more hosts, well it would depend on the exact mechanism.

Head crabs in Half Life merely latch on to their hosts and keep them alive while turning their chests into maws and the hosts even remain conscious and in great agony. These are zombies but not dead and so no rotting.

The fungus in The Last of Us works by a similar mechanism however it does cause massive damage to the host and thus after a time the host does expire and the fungus actually incorporates this into its lifecycle creating a burst of spores from the hosts swollen body as it expires.

WWZ relies on a virus that plasticizes the flesh of the host thereby rendering it poisonous and not susceptible to rotting. The host is dead however his body is not truly dead just taken over and the virus uses the muscles and form like pulling the levers on a puppet.

All of these methods create zombies all are possible all are natural means of creating zombies. each deal with the idea that dead bodies should rot in different ways. We see that in real life if zombies were to arise they would not truly be risen dead but simply shells puppets hosts for some entity or parasite and so would not usually rot.

Comment by Priest on December 5, 2013 at 2:03am

Well... one would need to consider the fact that we are talking about 'reanimated dead' organisms here.  That singular fact alone negates a good deal of what is understood to be scientific fact, right?  Dead people simply are not supposed to be able to have some degree of muscular functionality and an insatiable hunger for the not-quite-dead people.  When you introduce something of that magnitude into the natural order, who knows what ripple effects could occur?

Personally, I think it boils down to what's powering your zombie flesh eater to begin with.  Something naturally occurring will most likely end up a pile a decayed organic matter.  However, something supernatural or synthetically based might go in a different direction.

For further reading (and because they're just bad ass books), I recommend:

The Rising by Brian Keene

Patient Zero by Jonathon Mayberry