Boing Boing brings us David Mizejewski’s “Zombies vs. animals? The living dead wouldn’t stand a chance“, an entertaining thought experiment considering how Mother Nature might deal with a horde of animate human corpses. A sneak peek: it likely wouldn’t go well for the dead.

The article is liberally supplemented with videos graphically demonstrating how various animals both create and deal with carrion. It also offers some intriguing ideas such as survivors raising beetles that feast exclusively on dead tissue as a biological defense mechanism.

All told, if Mizejewski’s is correct, it seems like a zombie apocalypse may be the ultimate environmental boon.

WatchMojo.com has put together their list of the top 10 zombie movies of all time. I might have ignored nostalgia and moved “Sean of the Dead” to the top of the list and included such under-appreciated experiments as “Fido” and “Deadgirl” but I’ll agree to disagree.

Gizmodo has alerted us to a new zombie threat: buildings. Not just regular buildings, but big buildings lurking in wait in many of our largest cities. In “Zombie Towers: 5 Vacant or Foreclosed Skyscrapers Across the U.S.“, we learn about several of what could be dozens, or even hundreds, of these threats.

I’m not sure, exactly, how a building might decide to bite you. I have to assume, whatever it is, it ain’t pretty. Be vigilant!

We’re big fans of “The Walking Dead” here at MoreBrains but we have to concede that currently Maggie (the wonderful Lauren Cohan) is carrying the show almost totally by herself, at least boobs-wise.  Of course, it might be argued that a show about the fall of civilization due to a zombie outbreak doesn’t really need boobs (hatchets, for example, seem to be more useful overall).

The Gorilla Tango Theater in Chicago disagrees. They have created a special night of ribald parody especially for (adult) zombie fans, “Boobs of the Dead: A Walking Dead Burlesque“. From the theater site:

“The Sheriff awakes to find that a virus has taken over the world and has transformed the majority of Chicago into undead zombie burlesque dancers. Undeterred by this gruesome turn of events, Sheriff suits up, snags a sexy mount, and rides off in search of other survivors. Will Sheriff find Wife Lady before she bags Best Friend? Will Old Dude’s Winnebago run out of gas at the exact. wrong. moment? Will Southern Guy’s crossbow have enough endless bolts to get them all to the Chicago CDC? The answers to all these questions and more await you in this parody of the popular Walking Dead television series.”

I can’t say that the actual television show would be better or worse if, instead of regular-old zombies, the outbreak produced undead zombie burlesque dancers but I am willing to offer the benefit of the doubt.

Having been to a few burlesque shows in my time, this looks awesome. A good burlesque show is fun. The humor is adult and the cast is undeniably sexy, but the show isn’t about sex (most, in fact, feature no actual nudity). It’s about stomping your feet, acting goofy and, yes, the sublime titillation of the tease. Although I’ll be sadly unable to see this in person, this looks like a very good burlesque show.

Just a reminder that the always hilarious RiffTrax crew will be riffing the classic original “Night of the Living Dead” tonight, October 24, at a theater near you!

We’ve gone to every live event since they started and not a single one has ever disappointed.  This is, hands down, some of the best entertainment dollars you’ll ever spend.  This is a one-night only, live, simulcast event: don’t miss it!

Since a good pirate “arrrr!” is almost as good as a deep zombie “arrghhhh” let’s celebrate Talk Like a Pirate Day!  In fact here’s a scurvy dog that’s combining the two in his very own hobby movie, Zombie Pirate Tales:

In fact the lubber’s been working on it for at least seven years!  Go give him some zombie pirate love, me hearties!

In “The case of ‘zombie’ voters in South Carolina” the Washington Post’s esteemed fact checker Glenn Kessler summarizes the unfortunately conclusive report that, despite repeated claims to the contrary, the dead have not, in fact, risen to assume the privileges of democratic citizenship.

Lawmakers in the state used the unsubstantiated claim that, “Well over 900 individuals appear to have voted after they died,” to push through a ridiculously biased voter registration law (the law is still pending a federal review).  Unfortunately for them an extensive probe discovered firstly that the claims weren’t being made about a single election but rather 74 separate elections over seven years.  Secondly, none of the claims were actually true.

You see, instead of the shambling, violent (but still conscientious) voters, we got hundreds of clerical errors, odd cases of death after absentee ballot and incorrect social security numbers.  In short not one case of actual voter fraud was found.  This was known, by the way, in May 2012.  The report was only released now due to a Freedom of Information Act subpoena.

So, to repeat: no zombie electoral apocalypse; just clerical errors.  Prepared survivors: please stand down!