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the_quark t1_jdlarvk wrote

Reply to comment by sciguy52 in How does the rabies virus actually compel the host to bite? How does it know how to tell the brain to bite another living thing? by Lettuce-b-lovely

And this is why human-to-human transfer of rabies is very rare. Even confused, aggressive, delirious humans don't generally tend to bite as their main attack.

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PezzoGuy t1_jdmlaqe wrote

Funny enough, the zombie virus from the game Dying Light is a strain of rabies based on this very misconception.

Granted, for video game logic, "less fear of attacking/biting others" to "active desire to attack/bite others" isn't the worst jump in logic I've seen.

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Person012345 t1_jdnptqr wrote

I don't know about Dying Light but most instances of zombie fiction where the zombie disease is caused by a variant of rabies, it's usually taken to be a novel strain of rabies that DOES cause excessively aggressive behaviour in it's hosts. It would seem kinda silly to just say "it's rabies" because we have rabies in the real world and we don't (yet) have a zombie apocalypse.

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Pyroclastic_Hammer t1_jdmcdbc wrote

Some fun bedtime reading for you kids.

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2012/05/30/153989768/bath-salts-drug-suspected-in-miami-face-eating-attack

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https://www.clickorlando.com/news/2019/03/29/florida-man-in-face-eating-attack-believed-he-was-half-man-half-dog-doctor-says/

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kaoscurrent t1_jdn04ba wrote

I still remember this like it was yesterday. My friends and I were so sure it was the start of the zombie apocalypse

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