DO ZOMBIE'S MOAN? IF SO, HOW?
It’s widely accepted that Zombies can’t speak, because their limited brain function doesn’t allow for complex thoughts. However, watch almost any Zombie movie made in the past 50 years, and you’ll hear them moaning up a storm. Very scary on the big screen, but are real Zombies are able to make primitive utterances? And if so, how? A theory put forth by Gregory Pickman, Associate Researcher at ZRS, may hold the answer.
Pickman suggests that the Zombies are able to make noise for one simple reason: they breathe. Because a Zombie is technically dead, it doesn’t need to take in oxygen to continue “living”. Therefore a Zombie could hold his breath for any numbers of hours or days, allowing it to do things like walk under water, and function without lungs or a wind pipe. But Pickman argues that breathing serves two important functions for Zombie survival: 1) It substantially slows the speed of decay, by keeping the body tissues somewhat oxygenated, and 2) it allows the pre and post rigor Zombie to move a greater speeds, approximating human adulatory velocity. The moaning, then, is just a biproduct of a less-than-perfect resperatory system trying to do its job.
The bold idea has met with considerable resistance at ZRS, but I have yet to hear a solid argument debunking Pickman’s theory altogether.
What do you think?
(you can also answer at my blog: http://zombieresearch.wordpress.com/)
Pickman suggests that the Zombies are able to make noise for one simple reason: they breathe. Because a Zombie is technically dead, it doesn’t need to take in oxygen to continue “living”. Therefore a Zombie could hold his breath for any numbers of hours or days, allowing it to do things like walk under water, and function without lungs or a wind pipe. But Pickman argues that breathing serves two important functions for Zombie survival: 1) It substantially slows the speed of decay, by keeping the body tissues somewhat oxygenated, and 2) it allows the pre and post rigor Zombie to move a greater speeds, approximating human adulatory velocity. The moaning, then, is just a biproduct of a less-than-perfect resperatory system trying to do its job.
The bold idea has met with considerable resistance at ZRS, but I have yet to hear a solid argument debunking Pickman’s theory altogether.
What do you think?
(you can also answer at my blog: http://zombieresearch.wordpress.com/)
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by A. Morisson on -
It could only be like snoring if they breathe. You snore because you're trying to breathe and there's an obstruction. Not sure how the wind thing makes sense.
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Permalink Reply by Suigeneris on -
So a zombies moan can be equated to a gas bubble build-up (or fart) inside its decomposing body? Saying that, could a zombie fart too? Would the gas, (methane right?), rise up and out of the mouth or would it head for the nearest cavity exit, thus fart? Hmmm?
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Permalink Reply by JB on -
Actually your partially right. While a zombie is upright, the air is looking for a way north, so if it happens to be through the stomach it would be a belch. But technically, as a body decomposes, it is possible for the bowels to expel any waste still in it. This could result in released gas from the rectum, (OR FART).
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Permalink Reply by Harms on -
Well there are two types of muscle contraction. Voluntary and involuntary. Zombies are able to move, so that means that their deteriorating muscle system still works. The lungs work by the expansion and retraction of the diaphragm (involuntary muscle). This muscle increases and decreases the lung's volume. When the lungs expand, it draws in air. And when it retracts, the air is exhaled. Due to the decaying and weak Pharynx (vocal cord) the air goes in and out creating a moaning noise.
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Permalink Reply by A. Morisson on
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The Pharynx and the vocal cords (technically known as the vocal folds) are two different things completely. The Pharynx doesn't have anything to do with verbalization. Vocal folds, on the other hand, are controlled by the Vagus Nerve, or Cranial Nerve X. When the vocal folds are at rest, they are open, and so not making any noise. They ONLY contract (causing sound) when commanded to do so by the Vagus Nerve - meaning brain.
So it looks like if we're sticking with human physiology, Zombies must moan because they want to - not because they're farting out of their mouths.
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Permalink Reply by The Bruin on
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This is a completely acceptable and fact based argument. Since zombies can control the other parts of the musculature (walk, grab, bite) it is not in any way unbelievable that they would be able to control all of it.
Virus or no, the zombie infection acts like a virus, utilizing the systems of the human body to carry the virus to other potential victims much the way a sneeze might infect others with a cold. The "virus" for lack of a better term, seems capable of some level of higher order organization in that it acts independently, but can recognize others of it's type. It is likely that the "Moan" is designed to attract others of it's type to increase the chances of spreading the infection.
Keep in mind that I have a limited understanding of human physiology so some of the terms I may have screwed up but I believe the hypothesis is sound...
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Permalink Reply by A. Morisson on
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I agree Bruin. Everything you say makes total sense. I am just trying to get a grasp of the specific phsyological action - how does it happen?
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Permalink Reply by JB on
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That's really good thinking there. But all this is assuming that zombies have higher brain function and can thus, open the door your behind, or pick the lock. Zombies aren't organized, they can't be. The virus infects their brain, controlling the most basic functions as best it can. But when a body dies, the nerves start dying off, thus making it more difficult for the brain to send signals to the limbs. This is why most cannot run, because, while the signal does get sent, it is misinterpreted and incomplete. So they understand move your leg, just not, move your leg quickly.
But yes, it is entirely possible that they can create sounds like growls or moans, just as someone mute can make noises without the use of the vocal cords.
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Permalink Reply by JB on
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Or they have this flap of tissue in their throat called the epigolotus. With air expelling, the vibration of this could result in a moaning or deep wheezing sound. Or by definition, some of the snoring thoughts could be more accurate. A deviated septum causes noise, as well as loose or swollen tissue in the pharynx.
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Permalink Reply by A. Morisson on
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So you're saying that they breathe. The only way to get enough air inside the body (dead or alive) to make a moan longer than a burp, is to breathe air in. Gasses building up would create short bursts of sound (again, burp/fart) but not a slow, constant moan.
So you are saying that zombies breathe air in. Right? If not, explain how the constant stream of air gets inside of them to be expelled out causing the sound. Every example you use above is directly related to breathing.
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Permalink Reply by JB on
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It's not the breathing that you or I would do, but rather the contraction and relaxation of the diaphragm and intercostal muscles that cause your lungs to take air in. Just as we've speculated that they have muscle memory that allows them to walk and grab objects, the most simple involuntary muscles continue to react.
Again, See Harms arguement above...
This is not to say that they absorb oxygen because they are taking air into their lungs. Again, the blood has to be flowing, and that means the heart has to keep beating, which means that if all this is happening, the brain, central Nervous System, Digestive system and every other organ is still alive. Which means you don't have a zombie, but a living breathing cannibal. Most of this is speculation, and medical fact backs up this statement.
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I think Joseph's argument has merit. What I was trying to say before which may have gotten lost in the shuffle (no pun intended) is that the use of the lungs in this manner may be a mechanism that the virus employs to use the human body's existing structures to communicate to other infected corpses. Not so much like human's communicate, but more as a method of finding/alerting other infected to it's whereabouts. Most if not all organisms are capable of "communication" on even this basic level, even though I would argue that the moan is the far limit of a zombies "communication". It is the purpose of that communication that concerns me.
What I would suggest is that whatever this virus is, it subverts the human bodily systems to it's own purpose. For a human body to function correctly, all of these systems need to work in harmony. Once the body is dead, decomposition begins immediately. That said, the organism that subverts these systems must be inherently capable of providing some alternative method of energy distribution to be capable of movement. It may create some type of chemical that acts like oxygen but has none of the same properties.
Again, I am hypothesising greatly here...
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