The horrific face-eating arrest in Miami and several other seemingly subhuman acts has many people wondering what's behind this flesh-munching wave of terror.
Over the years the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has released a couple of tongue-in-cheek "zombie warnings," which really are just disaster-preparedness stunts. But on Thursday, the agency made it official: Zombies don't exist.
"CDC does not know of a virus or condition that would reanimate the dead (or one that would present zombie-like symptoms)," wrote agency spokesman David Daigle in an email to The Huffington Post.
Nevertheless, recent incidents in which humans reportedly ate human flesh have the Internet in a firestorm, with "zombie apocalypse" being Google's third most popular search term by Friday morning.
The zombie craze seemed to start with an attack in Miami on Saturday, when Rudy Eugene, 31, was killed by cops while in the process of eating almost the entirety of a homeless man's face off. The victim, Ronald Poppo, miraculously survived, but doctors are having a hard time figuring out how to put his face back together.
Then, on Tuesday, 21-year-old Alexander Kinyua of Maryland allegedly admitted to dismembering his roommate and then eating his heart and brain.
Cops in Canada are also searching for a low-budget porn actor who allegedly killed a young man with an ice pick, dismembered the body and then raped and ate flesh from the corpse. Luka Rocco Magnotta is being hunted after he allegedly mailed some of the body parts to Ottawa. He's also accused of killing cats on video and posting the footage online.
Gawker fingered a "mysterious rash" breakout at a high school in Hollywood and other parts of Florida -- which hazmat and disease control teams still can't explain -- as further proof that zombies are taking over.
Zombie-like characteristics have been confirmed in the animal kingdom, just not in humans. A newfound fungus in a Brazilian rain forest -- called Ophiocordyceps camponoti-balzani -- is known to infect an ant, take over its brain so as to move the body to a good location for growth, and then kill the insect.
Yet Daigle dismissed "fictional viruses" like Ataxic Neurodegenrative Satiety Deficiency Syndrome, noting that other triggers have been alleged to cause zombie-like symptoms.
"Films have included radiation as well as mutations of existing conditions such as prions, mad-cow disease, measles, and rabies," he said.
(Read by Emily Cheng. Emily Cheng in is a journalist at the China Daily Website.)
双语资讯
(Agencies)
美国迈阿密骇人听闻的“裸男吃脸案”，和其它多起吃人案使许多民众怀疑事件背后是否有“僵尸”作祟。
过去数年来，美国疾控中心
CDC发言人大卫-戴格在给《赫芬顿邮报》的电邮中写道：“CDC并不知道有病毒或条件能让人死而复生
然而，近期多起人吃人的案件已在网络上引发热议，“僵尸启示录”上周五上午成为谷歌第三大热搜词。
“僵尸狂热”始于周六迈阿密的食人案。31岁的鲁迪•尤金在啃食一名无家可归的男子的脸部时被警察击毙，受害者罗纳德•普普整张脸几乎全被啃掉，但奇迹般地活了下来。医生们正想法恢复他的面部。
紧接着的周二，马里兰州21岁的亚历山大•金约承认肢解了室友，吃掉了受害者的心脏和大脑。
加拿大警察还在搜捕一位低成本色情片的演员，据称他用冰锥杀死了一名年轻男子，对受害者实施了肢解、辱尸、并吃掉部分尸体的惨无人道的行为。嫌疑人卢卡•罗科•马尼奥塔把部分尸体邮寄到了渥太华，之后遭到搜捕。他还拍摄了虐杀小猫的视频，并上传到网站。
八卦网站Gawker指出，佛罗里达州好莱坞某高中和该州其它部分地区爆发“神秘的皮疹”疫情，就连危险物质和疾病控制单位也无法解释，网站以此进一步佐证僵尸正接管世界。
类僵尸特征已在动物界得到证实，但人类世界则不存在。巴西热带雨林新发现的一种名为Ophiocordyceps camponoti-balzani的真菌能够感染蚂蚁，控制蚂蚁的脑部，让它们往适合这类真菌生长的地点移动，之后便杀死蚂蚁。
但戴格驳斥世界上存在类似共济失调神经退化饱腹感缺乏综合症的“虚构病毒”，并指出其它因素据称也会引发类似僵尸的症状。
他说：“根据多部电影，辐射以及朊病毒、疯牛病、麻疹和狂犬病等现有病情突变也会造成类似僵尸的症状。”
Vocabulary:
tongue-in-cheek: 半开玩笑的，不当真的
reanimate: 使复活，使恢复生气
firestorm: 大爆发
low-budget: 低成本
fungus: 菌类，真菌
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