Zombies Love Tryptophan.

Zombies used to say “brains” and that was what they were after. Just brains. But then modern-zombies started eating the whole person. There’s a huge difference there. My theory is that while older zombies went after our “moral” cores, the new zombies go after our “identity’ cores.

At the end of Night of the Living Dead, a bunch of rednecks have some zombies strung up from a tree, and are shooting at them. Barbra is visibly disgusted. These barbarians are no better than the mindless brain eaters that had earlier terrorized a house full of survivors. The barbarians are just as brainless, or a-moral, as the zombies.

But you’re modern zombie film or TV show is about guts. Do the characters have the guts to do what needs to be done to survive? Or will they give in to a false sense of themselves, the person they “used” to be, and in the process, be taken down by a hungry horde of intestine-gobblers?

Here’s the key, and the cheap thanksgiving tie-in: Tryptophan. The tryptophan in turkey, and most meats, most protein-possessing foods, gets converted in your body into serotonin. Ninety percent of that stays in your gut. So when the zombies eat your guts, they’re getting a nice fat dose of serotonin. And since they’re brains don’t work so good, that serotonin stays in their gut, too.

They eat it so that their guts will keep working, allowing them to eat more. This circle is the core of they’re identity. Not eat to live, or live to eat, but eat to eat. Juxtaposed to that is the survivors. They eat to live, of course, but their vicious circle is about survival. They survive to survive.

And what’s survival but evading death? And what’s death but the big sleep? And what’s serotonin but the sleep transmitter? And what’s serotonin but what is made out of tryptophan? And what’s tryptophan but the amino acid that comes from Turkey? And what’s turkey but the result of “living to eat?”

Thanksgiving is a day to be thankful that we can choose who we want to be: Gluttons. Even zombies don’t get to choose that.

The Zombies News is a Horde, No, Really!

Don’t know if you now this but I am one of the people who contribute to The Great Brain Robbery, a blog that discusses brain research. I read a dozen blogs every day until I find something I want to talk about, and then I talk about it, and then I shake my head out how little we know.

And I am amazed at how many times the subject of zombies comes up. Not just because zombies eat brains! Zombies really are a thing, they’re everywhere, they’re in the annals of scientific discourse. I mean, talk about a metaphor eating its way through the flesh of innocent subjects, sheesh.

There’s this story, about the uncanny valley, which is a metaphor for our comfort with life-like robots. At first we’re okay with ‘em, but as they get more human-like we get creeped out, and then we’re okay again. It’s in the eyes specifically, according to the research, which is why zombies eyes can be made to terrify us before they even drool blood and gurgle a request for our intestines.

And then there was this story, which led me to the source of “Ataxic Neurodegenerative Satiety Deficiency (I wrote about that a few weeks ago). Again, found it from a brain blogger. He also provided this: How World War Z Should Have Ended.

I could dedicate a whole blog post to any one of these. But I have one on Zombie children in Africa, Zombies in Puerto Rico, and one on necrotizing fasciitis to write (all of which will feature Dr. Dratoc, by the way). There’s too much!

A few weeks ago I switched from two posts a day to one, and I was thinking about dropping to three times a week. But then they’ll get me. The zombie news will crash through this brittle walls, rip me to shred and consumer my quivering flesh. I am literally shaking right now. Ignore that coffee cup. I am literally shaking!