I was reading a post by @ruth-girl earlier about tiny capsules that can be swallowed, and once in the gut, they can analyze the gases that are produced by a particular person’s digestion. It is a very interesting and entertaining article that you should definitely check out!

But, it reminded me of something else that I read years ago on Cracked.com. I am a BIG fan of zombie stuff! There is even a part of me that kind of wishes there would be a zombie apocalypse just to find out if I could rise to the challenge. I didn’t figure I’d get the chance to find out for another decade or two, but in light of the new technology presented in @ruth-girl's article, I may have to refine my estimation!

NOTE - Before reading any further, please take your tongue and place it firmly against the inside of your jaw. Now, you may continue.

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“Why”, I thought to myself, “would scientists spend so much time and money developing fart detectors small enough to swallow when all they really had to do was grab a balloon and a funnel to catch them on the way out? There must be some ulterior motive!

Then, it dawned on me… ZOMBIES!

These “fart detectors” are nothing more than covert nanobot delivery vehicles! Wondering what I’m talking about? Think I’ve gone mad? Read on…

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What Are Nanobots?

Theoretically, nanobots would be tiny robots that could operate on a nano scale, 1 - 100 nm. The prefix “nano-” means 10^-9, so one nanometer would be 0.000000001 m. If you’re like me, this is an unfathomable number, but to give you an idea of the scale we’re talking about, a strand of human DNA is around 2 nm thick; or, red blood cells are 7,000 - 8000 in diameter. nm. In his 1986 book, Engines of Creation: The Coming Era of Nanotechnology, K. Eric Drexler envisions self-replicating nanobots that would have the ability to build things one atom at a time. The possibilities are staggering! Imagine millions of these bots flowing through your blood stream constantly monitoring your health, fighting infection, and repairing damage on the atomic level! Break a bone? No worries! These little guys can take calcium and other minerals from your diet and rebuild it, molecule by molecule.

Indeed, there are those who hope that we’ll have these little miracle micro machines running around in our bodies within the next 10 years, and it appears that we may be well on our way to hitting that mark. Scientists at Drexel University have already strapped a robotic control device to a single cell of the bacteria Serratia marcescens, a type of bacteria that contains a flagellate tail that it uses to propel itself through liquid media. The robot is able to manipulate the bacteria cell and steer it from point A to point B while avoiding obstacles in the process.

Elsewhere, researchers have developed the world’s tiniest engine composed of a single atom driven by a beam of electromagnetic waves and lasers, and at the University of Cambridge, researchers have built the world’s most powerful nanoengine. It is just a few nanometers across, but pound-for-pound, it is the strongest motor ever created. It actually has a force per unit weight output that is 100 times higher than any motor or muscle! It works by heating and cooling gold nanoparticles that have been immersed in temperature responsive gel polymers. When their temperature hits 32 ^oC (89.6 ^oF), the nanoparticles clump into a ball. When the temperature drops below 32 ^oC, the particles quickly expand outward. The engine harnesses this explosion of motion, much like a car piston harnesses the energy from gasoline combustion. All it would take would be a cooling mechanism, and these things could be used to drive nanobots throughout our body. Our body heat would raise the temperature, and the cooling system would drive the repulsive action.

Mechanical engineers at Ohio State University have figured out a way to make nanomachines out of DNA that has been Frankensteined together. For some time, scientists have been able to coax DNA strands to fold in particular patterns and stitch them in place using other DNA fragments. This method yielded structures that were good for simple one-time jobs like delivering medication to specific locations. The OSU scientists have improved on this method by fabricating machines with moving parts like hinges and pistons, all made from DNA! Their improved nanobio machines are already capable of performing reversible tasks. That is, once they’ve completed their job, they can reset and do it again. The idea for the future is to give them the ability to adapt to the task that is required. The scientists likened them to transformers with the ability to detect certain cues from their environment and change their shape/function to meet the task. Given our current understanding of how pH, charge, etc. can affect protein folding. It seems to me that it would be totally within the realm of possibility to design specific side chains that we could control using a nanobot computer.

We Have The Technology

Think about it: if we were to take one of OSU’s nano transformer bots, strap on one of those engines from the University of Cambridge, and guide it with Drexel University’s control device, we would have a nanobot! Even I must admit that the potential for good that would come from such a tool is very promising; but could the potential for great evil outweigh the positives?

How Nanobots WILL Start The Zombie Apocalypse

Now, back to these fart detectors nanobot delivery vehicles. Isn’t it possible that the capsule is actually filled with billions nanobots that will leak out into a person’s body? I think the ruling elite - the global shadow government, if you will - is inoculating innocent, unknowing citizens worldwide with dormant nanobots that will be awakened once a particular threshold number of people are infected. Any zombie apocalypse prepper worth his salt knows that all the brain functionality a walker really needs comes from the brainstem (breathing, heartbeat, blood pressure), midbrain (movement), and the cerebellum (balance & coordination). Once activated, many of these nanobots will travel to the brain where they will hijack parts of the cerebral cortex that allow humans to process thought and act rationally, producing mindless, roaming zombies. But these won’t be your slow-walking Night of the Living Dead zombies. With a fully functional midbrain and cerebellum, these zombies will be fully capable of running or even using tools and weapons!

But, WHY?

What good does zombifying a relatively small portion of the globe really do? Because DEPOPULATION, that’s why! These nightmarish nanobots are programmed to find new hosts to infect. These bots are programmed to spread to new hosts; and, since they live in bodily fluids (blood, saliva), they will drive their current host like a mariannette to find the uninfected. All it will take is a simple bite - saliva entering a fresh wound - to spread a few thousand of these malware bots. At first, the newly infected victim won’t notice anything out of the ordinary (other than the fact that some random dude just chased them down and bit them). But, inside, the mechanical invaders are busy building an army. Molecule by molecule, they begin to collect DNA fragments and trace minerals from the infected’s body; fashioning them into exact replicas of themselves. As the robot population increases in number, the victim begins to have a hard time focusing on tasks, and their self control begins to wane. ”I’m just tired”, they tell themselves early one afternoon before hitting the hay early. But they won’t wake up - at least not the conscious part of them. They’ll just be the newest puppet in a bio-army bent on destruction.

How Does This Help The Ruling Elite?

Why would they want to inherit an earth that has been overrun by a horde of nanobot zombies? Don’t forget: they programmed the machines. They can just as easily reprogram them. I figure they have a couple of good options, at this point. Option 1: They can program all infected individuals to migrate to one spot; then, send a kill code to the bots, leaving the entire Earth to just a handful of inhabitants. More likely, however, they will go with Option 2: Program most infected individuals to migrate to one place before sending a kill code. Them, program the remaining zombies to do the bidding of their conquerors. Either way, things don’t end well for most of humanity.

Okay, Okay! I’m Just Kidding

I don’t really think that secret op scientists have been silently developing nanotechnology that can take over the human brain. And, even if they have, there can’t be possible for a group of people that hold so much global power that they could control the world without anyone even knowing their identity…

COULD THERE?!?