Gypsy moths have been acting weird lately, and according this article, aptly titled How a brain-manipulating virus turns caterpillars into zombies, via Ars Technica, there’s a reason: baculovirus. The peaceful little gypsy moths no longer want to just hide away in cool soil and stay safe from lurking birds looking for a quick snack, but now they want to DIE AND RAIN DOWN THEIR DISEASE ON ALL CREATURES.

“…baculovirus…The aptly named “tree top disease” makes the infected gypsy moth caterpillar climb to the top of a tree to die, liquefy, and release millions of infective virus particles.”

These nasty particles then get swept up by rain and wind and find they ways onto everything. Yup, caterpillars could be the beginning of a full fledge zombie invasion. Okay, maybe not, but… ?

A new book written and edited by young adult authors Holly Black and Justine Larbalestier might just answer the age old question: who’s better, zombies oir unicorns? Find out in their book, aptly titled Zombies VS. Unicorns. Here’s their description of the book:

In this anthology, edited by Holly Black and Justine Larbalestier (unicorn and zombie, respectively), strong arguments are made for both sides in the form of short stories.  Half of the stories portray the strengths – for good and evil – of unicorns and half show the good (and really, really bad-ass) side of zombies. This anthology will have everyone asking: Team Zombie or Team Unicorn?

This books seems so absurd, but I must admit different scenarios ran through my head when I heard it’s title, so they must be onto something. Available September 21st 2010, for $16.99,  from Simon & Schuster.

This is odd:

“A man known as the “Zombie Bandit,” suspected of robbing banks…was sentenced to more than 17 years in federal prison Tuesday for a string of heists. Authorities said Hurwitz (the “Zombie Bandit” -ed.)…earned his nickname for his mumbling and blank demeanor…”

(Via MercuryNews.com)

My inbox was full of news alerts concerning the possible MTV Dawn of the Dead TV show, but there is really little to report on this. Apparently, it was a Bloodydisguting.com exclusive, but I have looked all over their site, followed numerous links and could not find the original artcile/ news bite. So…that being said, this sounds like a shit idea from a shit channel. We’ll keep looking for more info on this possible future project. Here’s the piece of PR that everybody is quoting:

Zack Snyder, who directed the 2004 remake, will not be involved at this time. For those of you wondering about what kind of zombies will be used, talk indicates a wide variety (running and slow). It will be more of a spin-off than original production…

I’ve spent the last half an hour trying to find a copy online of the Left 4 Dead zombie-video-game-porno-parody, Left 4 Head. But…every time I come close to a copy of it, the video has been removed due to “copyright infringement”. You can find more info on it here, here and here. Also, if anybody finds the video online, please let us know.

Could this be the future of zombie killing technology? An enterprising weapons enthusiast built this custom rifle with chainsaw bayonet. And it actually works – check out the several youtube demonstration videos.

This has to be the best article I’ve read this month, concerning psychics and the supernatural, compliments of the Guardian UK. Here’s a great snippet from it:

In February a psychic was called to investigate a reported zombie in underground tunnels at an Eastbourne sewage plant. “It’s not funny going to work and worrying that a zombie might be around the corner,” said one plant worker.

Read the whole article here. On a side note, get your own sewer zombie here.

I have Google Alerts for all types of zombie stuff. One of them is simply for the word “zombie” in the News category. I keep getting alerts about the new movie Doomsday. The alerts usually center around the title of a review of the movie that has the word “zombie” in it, then when you read the article, there’s no mention of zombies anywhere. “Britain Over-Run By Zombies…Again” or “Scots Cannibal Zombies Are Box Office Hit In US” are the titles, yet they just go on to discuss a movie about a virus that kills people and survivors of that virus being cannibalistic and deep frying whole humans. I saw this problem when I Am Legend came out. I Am Legend is based on a book about vampires! In the movie, the infected avoid sunlight and are attracted to blood, which sounds an awful lot like vampires. Has it gotten so bad that people just automatically respond to buzzwords like “virus”, “infected”, “cannibal” and just spew out “Zombie”? Or are there actually zombies in Doomsday?