General

Zombie Apocalypse May Come After A Pandemic

Published

2 years ago

December 5, 2021

More than a year has passed since the World Health Organization (WHO) declared COVID-19 a pandemic . The most important lesson that humanity has learned is that society is completely unprepared for a long time to resist viruses. If we imagine not COVID-19, but an edited pathogen genome that can turn a person into a zombie?

When fiction comes true

Recent advances in gene editing suggest that bioterrorists can theoretically create viruses that can alter our behavior. Interference with RNA and, as a result, genome alteration is not a fantasy.

One of the goals of replacing the epidemic with the word “pandemic” was the establishment of a New World Order and a supranational government.

Jacques Attali, a French economist, a member of the Bilderberg Club, the first head of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and one of the ideologues of globalism, wrote about this a decade before the coronavirus was discovered.

The most obvious example of “zombification” is rabies, which can cause aggression and hallucinations, and when these symptoms appear, it is almost always fatal.

A newly discovered species of wasp, by laying eggs on the belly of a certain species of spider (Anelosimus eximius), is capable of turning them into “zombies”. The resulting larvae then attach to the spider, feeding on it, while the spider, once a social animal, leaves the colony and prepares to die alone.

Other examples of zombification in nature:

African sleeping sickness (African trypanosomiasis), a fatal neurological disease caused by insect-borne parasitic unicellular organisms;

the fungus Ophiocordyceps unateralis, which alters the behavior of the carpenter ants (Camponotus) before killing them and sprouting from their heads.

Combat pathogens

Last year, the Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to Berlin-based Frenchwoman Emmanuelle Charpentier and American Jennifer Doudna for developing a method for editing genomes.

According to the Nobel Committee, the created CRISPR-Cas9 technology is already being used to treat cancer patients, has proven itself in the treatment of such genetic diseases, like sickle cell anemia; beta-thalassemia (β-thalassemias); and many others.

Known informally as “genetic scissors,” the development is capable of altering pathogens, making them more transmissible or deadly. In addition, bioterrorists will be able to turn a harmless microbe into an aggressive virus. This technique can even alter the virus to make it dangerous to more species than it currently infects, or to make it resistant to antibiotics or antiviral drugs.

Whether CRISPR can be used to infect humans in a way that makes them look like zombies is still a matter of theory. At the moment, there are simpler ways to terrorize people. But as biotechnology improves after COVID, the risk of bioterrorism increases.

The creators of the horror movie “28 Days Later” (28 Days Later) on the fictional “rage virus” – “rage virus” pushed two real-life viruses:

Ebola and

Marburg.

Given these possibilities, it is not surprising that in 2018 the director of US National Intelligence James Clapper (James Clapper) called gene editing “of mass destruction and the spread of weapons.”

In the same year, the US government released its first biosecurity strategy involving multiple government departments. The plan covers not only the deliberate threats of bioterrorism, but also “natural outbreaks and infectious diseases that accidentally slip out of the laboratory.”

The US Department of Defense’s Strategic Command has released a training program called CONOP 8888 (Counter-Zombie Dominance) that simulates a zombie apocalypse situation.

What are our chances of confronting gene-editable pathogens?

International legal conventions on biological and chemical toxins strictly prohibit states from acquiring or storing biological weapons. True, there is doubt as to how much they correspond in the light of the new approaches. Gene editing technologies like CRISPR are getting cheaper and easier to work with. In fact, unscrupulous scientists or organizations can use them for bioterrorism.

Ideally, the specific provisions of these international instruments should be revised and adapted to changing conditions. This could include a moratorium on experimentation with gene editing as a biological weapon, or allowing experiments solely for the benefit of human health.

In June, a WHO expert committee published two reports providing guidance on how editing of the human genome can be managed at the appropriate institutional, national and global levels. Including that ethics committees review clinical trials and approvals in this area.

The trouble is, these are just guidelines without the force of law. WHO is unable to regulate genome editing in individual countries. Thus, individual states are obliged to implement these recommendations in terms of their national legislation. Another problem is that the guidelines do not address safety and efficacy issues.

If all else fails, you may need to practice some skills from popular survival aids.

General

“Cursed charity shop painting ruined my life”, says British woman

Published

4 weeks ago

August 28, 2023

A British woman purchased a portrait of a young girl from a charity shop and now asserts that the picture is cursed, reports mirror.co.uk.

Zoe
Elliot-Brown, aged 36, spotted an artwork by an unfamiliar artist at
the Hastings Advice Representation Center in St Leonards-on-Sea, East
Sussex, a month ago.

Simultaneously, the seller cautioned Zoe
about the painting possibly being cursed, revealing that a prior
purchaser of the same artwork had returned it to the store with the
statement “it ruined my life.”

Out of curiosity, Zoe captured an
image of the painting on her smartphone and shared the photo with her
68-year-old mother, Jane Elliot-Brown. Her mother seemed to be entranced
by the painting.

Instantly,
she began urging Zoe to acquire the painting. Yielding to her mother’s
persuasion, Zoe paid £20 for the artwork. However, as soon as she
introduced it into her home, strange occurrences commenced taking place.

As
Zoe entered her home and positioned the painting in the living room,
their dog named Cilla leaped up and started growling at the artwork.
Cilla deliberately kept her distance, refraining from approaching the
picture. Subsequently, Zoe’s mother’s health took a sharp decline. She
began experiencing alternating spells of fever and chills, requiring her
to wear four sweaters to keep warm.

Concurrently, Zoe’s mother
seemed to be captivated by the painting. She continuously gazed at it
and even caressed the painted girl’s cheek. During the night, she heard
peculiar knocks emanating from the room where the picture hung, despite
the room being unoccupied.

Zoe managed to persuade her mother that
the painting held negative energy and was cursed. However, Jane
staunchly defended the painting, reluctant to part with it.

“I’ve
never seen my mother yearn for something so intensely. She was
entranced by it, but not in a positive manner. She guarded it. She
frequently gazed at it. She ran her fingers over the painted girl’s
cheeks and polished the surface, although the painting didn’t require
polishing.”

“Each time I mentioned disposing of the painting, she
became exceedingly irritable. It transformed into a sort of family
heirloom for her, something she began cherishing.”

“My mother
flatly refused to get rid of the painting. I think it’s a bit like the
magic power of the Lord of the Rings ring. It definitely works in an
attractive and charming way, it seems to pull you towards it.

“My mother became a bit like Gollum from The Lord of the Rings,” says Zoe.

Jane
herself says that it seems to her that the painted girl is very unhappy
and she stroked her to comfort her. She also does not attribute the
deterioration of her health to the purchase of the painting.

At
the same time, she admits that there were several cases when someone
seemed to knock on the door, and when she opened it, there was no one on
the threshold.

One day, Jane became so ill that she fainted right
in the bathroom. Zoe called 911, but her mother refused to go to the
hospital and was eventually left at home.

One morning, Zoe entered
the living room and saw her mother standing and stroking the painted
girl on her cheeks. And the mother could not remember how she ended up
in the living room and what she did at night.

“It
was strange behavior, especially for my mom. She couldn’t remember
anything from what happened last night. My mom is still very weird and
distracted and doesn’t want to discuss it.”

And then something
even more frightening happened. Zoe and her friend Ben went for a walk
on a hill during a thunderstorm and suddenly saw a “creepy black figure”
that suddenly appeared in front of them.

They do not know if this
is related to the painting, but they immediately ran back in fear.
Deciding to get rid of the cursed painting, Zoey eventually took it and
took it to the same shop where she bought it.

And when she drove
up to the store, she saw that in one of the tires of the car, brand new,
someone stuck a screw. She gave the painting to the seller, but then
changed her mind and took it back.

She
didn’t want someone else to buy the painting and get hurt because of
it. Now Zoe wants to give the picture only to someone who understands
damn things.

Now the painting is kept in Zoya’s house in a box filled with sage (it is believed that sage helps against evil spirits).

She also hung sage in every corner of the house, although Zoya’s mother was very unhappy with this.

“I
thought knowing my luck some idiot will go and get it and try and burn
it and I don’t really want to be left with the remainder of whatever the
hell has been going on. Technically I was the last owner. [I want it]
dealt with properly. […]”

General

Wild man with a spear in his hand was spotted in the forests of Germany

Published

1 month ago

August 25, 2023

A mysterious wild man, nicknamed by the locals “the wolf man”, was
photographed in the forested mountains of the Harz, in the center of
Germany. The man was completely naked and held a spear in his hand.

The
savage was accidentally noticed by two tourists who were walking
through the forest, not far from the city of Blankenburg in
Saxony-Anhalt, and examined the ruins of an old castle.

“When we
reached the caves in the sands, we saw this wolf-man. He stood high in
one of the caves and held in his hand a long wooden stick that looked
like a spear.

“He didn’t take his eyes off us, but he didn’t say
anything. He looked dirty and looked like a prehistoric man from the
Stone Age, like pictures in a history book,” Gina Weiss, 31, told Bild
newspaper.

According
to Weiss and her friend Toby, they observed this man for about ten
minutes. The naked man appeared to be in his forties and reportedly
these tourists were not the first to have seen him in the area.

It is assumed that he has been living in the forests near Blankenburg for about five years.

Authorities say they have received numerous reports of a person wearing a wolf’s skin or wolf costume over the past five years.

In
March 2023, a frightened eyewitness even called the police because he
thought that a wolfman running next to him wanted to attack him. In
other cases, people have seen how a savage is trying to make a fire or
building a hut out of branches for himself.

At the same time, it
is quite cold in this area in winter and it is not clear how this person
managed to survive here for several years.

According to Alexander
Beck, head of the local fire brigade, this savage clearly has the
skills to live in the wild and adapt to the changing seasons of the
year.

Where this man came from is unknown. There are many theories, from the hermit to more mystical versions such as time portals.

However, there are those who believe that all this is just some kind of prank to scare tourists or some other purpose.