Wednesday, April 21, 2010

How do they do that? Zombification

Well it's a little more difficult than I thought. And bear in mind (heh heh), that this is for cockroaches.
To cap off the experiment, Gal and Libersat then pretended to be wasps: they injected wasp venom directly into the SEG of healthy cockroaches. The injection zombified the roaches. The insects barely moved on their own, and they hardly budged in response to a terrifying puff of air.
Now I'm NOT saying that the correlation between cockroaches and people is a straight line graph but we all know people who aren't much smarter than cockroaches and honestly many off them would be better off shambling harmlessly around  being middle managers. I would imagine that eventually they would start to cause hygiene problems but then they could quite easily cleaned up and/or replaced.
This process also avoids all of the, shall we say, ikky problems of prions.

8 comments:

Smut Clyde said...

To cap off the experiment, Gal and Libersat then pretended to be wasps

This is where you can tell the experts at charades from the beginners.

Hamish Mack said...

I did wonder if they went for the full body suits or just the antennae and stinger. I would say that full suited would be the way.
Perhaps a Grownup Big Sister might have an interest in that question?

Unknown said...

Who is to know that the Big Sister isn't a charade?

aphane, an aphid window pane.

Smut Clyde said...

Big Sister is definitely evidence-based.

All I can say is that if people want to pretend to be wasps then I wish they wouldn't hang around the Old Entomologist. There are specialist venues for that kind of pervy activity, with barstaff dressed up as orchids and everything, or so I heard from a friend.

fish said...

When the female wasp is ready to lay her eggs, she seeks out a cockroach.


Who doesn't I ask you?

mikey said...

I'd like to discuss this further, but first it's breakfast time and I'm gonna go scramble up a few wasp eggs.

Yum...

zombie rotten mcdonald said...

A quite reasonable conclusion, herr smut. I support this research.

I am certainly available to help in the zombification.l

Big Bad Bald Bastard said...

To cap off the experiment, Gal and Libersat then pretended to be wasps:

They joined a snooty country club.