As the Obama Crisis Deepens, Consider Zombie-Proofing Your Home

All Images from All-that-is-interesting
Above you can see the zombie-proof house with all shutters fully closed. In this setting, the only access into the house is via a drawbridge, which must be lowered for entry.

Now you can see the shutters as they begin opening. Notice the large front heavy steel shutter which is electrically controlled.

Concrete shutters are now fully opened, revealing the side windows and front entrance and windows.

Here you can see the lowering of the drawbridge -- the only access to the house when all shutters are closed in full zombie-proof mode.

This is the house as it would normally be seen, with no zombies in the vicinity. Regular patrols by ground and from the air are mandatory, to assure the absence of zombies. A constant seismic surveillance is likewise necessary, to guard against the dreaded tunneling zombies.

After the sun goes down, the house would normally be fully closed in, due to the increased threat of nocturnal zombie attack. Immediately after this photograph was taken, a zombie spotting was reported two houses down, requiring an immediate shuttering-in. Eternal vigilance becomes second nature inside the zombie zone.

Taken from a posting at Al Fin, the Next Level

The Rise of the Zombie Empire: Resistance is Futile

They walk freely among us, unheeded. Infected by brain parasites, behaviours subtly altered. Two billion infected, and counting.
Zombies are popular fictional examples of brain alteration that is usually caused by a biological agent. But inside every fiction is the kernel of truth. Zombies are so popular in part because they are uncomfortably familiar.

LaughingSquid

At least two billion people worldwide are infected by the protozoan, many from eating infected meat. Initial symptoms are mild flu, after which the parasite forms cysts that lodge in the brain. There they remain for decades... _NYT

Two recent studies reveal how microbes can alter normal brain functioning. Researchers from California and Singapore detailed how the protozoan Toxoplasma Gondii is capable of blunting normal fear responses to threat in animals. Canadian and Irish researchers have discovered a mind-altering effect from probiotic bacteria -- specifically, a species of lactobacillus. The lactobacillus was found to lower stress, anxiety, and depression related behaviours in mice.

Microbes can change our brains, and make us somehow different. In extreme cases -- as in brain-eating amoeba or fatal encephalitis and meningitis -- they can kill our brains outright. But sometimes they kill or disable only a portion of our brains, and leave us alive, but altered. And sometimes they live inside of us, changing us chemically by their metabolic excreta.

These are not the "borg" of fiction. There are no brain implants or electrodes controlling us. But biology is much stranger than we understand. We can go to Robert Heinlein's "The Puppet Masters," for a vivid fictional account of extraterrestrial invaders able to attach to humans, growing tentacles into human brains and spinal cords. That would be an extreme example of biological control of humans by "the other."

Far more subtle, and easier to bring about, would be genetically controlled microbes able to insert themselves into particular parts of the brain, to bring about neurochemical alterations -- either temporary or permanent. By targeting the brain region of choice, behaviours could be manipulated according to an overall plan or scheme.

Even easier, would be normal body flora genetically altered to secrete brain-altering chemicals, such as benzodiazepine or amphetamine. Something a little extra in your yogurt or your moisturizing cream. Schools, prisons, and armies should take special note.

We are far beyond the skills needed for such simple manipulations. And given the apparent state control of modern popular media and scientific publishing, who would know -- or be able to say anything about it?

Here is how to make your own yogurt. Just in case. Some of us may not be infected yet. There may be safe retreats left, far from the teeming mobs. It may not be too late......Heh.

Neuro-Opto-Genetics and the New Cyborg Future

Using a combination of genetic engineering and laser technology, researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have manipulated brain wiring responsible for reward-seeking behaviors, such as drug addiction. The work, conducted in rodent models, is the first to directly demonstrate the role of these specific connections in controlling behavior.

The UNC study, published online on June 29, 2011, by the journal Nature, uses a cutting-edge technique called "optogenetics" to tweak the microcircuitry of the brain and then assess how those changes impact behavior. The findings suggest that therapeutics targeting the path between two critical brain regions, namely the amygdala and the nucleus accumbens, represent potential treatments for addiction and other neuropsychiatric diseases. _SD

It is necessary to read between the lines to understand what is being described. The scientists introduced foreign genes into selected pathways deep inside a rat's brain, then sent light via fiber-optics to trigger activity in the genetically modified pathways. The behaviour of the rats could then be controlled, using external light pulses.

By tapping into a wide variety of neural pathways -- to trigger different brain networks -- entirely different modes of behaviour could be influenced. But that is just the beginning.

The brain can be literally "played like a keyboard," with selective targeting of pathways and stimuli. Different genetic strains of opsins which respond to different wavelengths or pulse patterns of light could be implanted in brain nuclei or pathways quite close to each other, to prevent interference by neighboring brain networks. This level of fine control over the broad range of brain networks would allow the "programming" of a wide range of behaviours -- both skilled and unskilled -- over a period of time.

Utilising the brain's reward centers and pleasure centers -- but on a significantly more nuanced level than previously possible -- scientists and neuro-engineers could instill quite sophisticated behavioural repertoires in the unsuspecting cyborg's brain.

Humans are relatively unsuspecting as to the degree to which their important behaviours are influenced by miniscule quantities of natural chemicals, errant electrical stimuli, or ephemeral environmental phenomena. A sufficiently sophisticated and broad-spectrum approach to behavioural modification and programming could make even the most intelligent animal susceptible to simple light pulses. A short set of pulses might well set into motion behavioural programs which might go on for hours or longer, once the training is complete.

Just a short time spent contemplating the reinforcement pathways involved in maintaining drug addiction, or video game use, tells us that if a program of behavioural modification enlists the reward system of the brain sufficiently, it will become quasi-permanent and difficult to dis-engage, once mature.

These ideas have important implications for normal day to day human activity, at all developmental levels. Most of us will not sit still for genetic modification and implantation of optical or electrical probes. But we are being continuously programmed just the same, and our reward systems are helping to solidify this programming. It is not quite as far as some may imagine, from where we are to what is described above.

Along with the coming age of wonderful medical and psychological cures, will come free-riders of mind modification. We can either learn to tweak ourselves in ways that make us more alert, awake, and alive -- or we can join everyone else as they shuffle down the Idiocracy road.

Tips for Surviving a Zombie Apocalypse

Riverboat Zombie Survival Compound
The imaginative survival scheme pictured above should provide a creative boost to your survival planning efforts. Here are a number of things to keep in mind when planning for your apocalypse of choice:

Basic Considerations for Planning Survival Compounds

100 Items that Disappear from the Shelves First In a Panic

Homemade Fuels: PDF Handbook for Downdraft Gasifiers

FEMA PDF Plans for Homemade Stratified Downdraft Gasifier

PDF Ideas for making your own propane from bio-feedstocks PDF

More on biopropane from MIT Technology Review

You can run a gasoline generator, tractor, or automobile with gasifier-produced syngas, from wood chips etc.

Use your imagination to discover ways to provide the items most in demand in a crisis. You may have the kernel for a profitable business to see you through the apocalypse of choice. Accept only gold, silver, or high grade ammunition as payment.

Previously published at Al Fin Potpourri