Good Vampire Science

[NEOWatcher]

I got this through a link off of USAToday. It must be getting close to holloween.

It's a good light read. Actually humorous if you read between the lines.

Are Vampires Real? Physics Professor Drives Scientific Stake Into The Heart Of Supernatural Myths (http://www.scientificblogging.com/news_account/are_vampires_real_physics_professor_drives_scienti fic_stake_into_the_heart_of_supernatural_myths)


Using Isaac Newton's Laws of Motion, Efthimiou demonstrates that ghosts would not be able to walk and pass through walls. Basic math disproves the legend of humans turning into vampires after they are bitten

[phaishazamkhan]

Basic math disproves the legend of humans turning into vampires after they are bitten, Efthimiou explains, because the entire human population in 1600 would have been wiped out in less than three years.


Based on the assumption that vampires would simply beget vampires by consuming blood on a regular basis and depleting the source of food by converting it into a predator?
If this is the case according to Efthimiou then they don't seem to be taking into account that vampires may be intelligent, vampires may have an established society with strict mores which establish hunting grounds, hunting procedures and methods in addition to being relatively picky about who to recruit into their ranks if deigned necessary by the vampire community.
Heck if there were vampires and vampirism was communicable via bite then I'm sure that vampires would have understood this, cultivated vast leech farms, engaged in bloodletting and finally had some rudimentary medical technology to perform transfusions.
I think Efthimiou was considering vampirism as being something akin to the rage plague featured in 28 Days Later.

[NEOWatcher]

Based on the assumption that vampires would simply beget vampires by consuming blood on a regular basis and depleting the source of food by converting it into a predator?
Yes; It's detailed in the article.

[Noclevername]

It's not the GOOD vampires we need to worry about!:eek::evil::eek:

[phaishazamkhan]

It's not the SMART vampires we need to worry about!:eek::evil::eek:

fix'd

[Gillianren]

There's a short story (which I've never read, but which is mentioned by Stephen King in Danse Macabre) called "Some of Your Blood" which entails a vampire getting its blood without actually causing any to be spilled himself. However, one suspects that the cup or so he'd be able to get that way every month isn't enough to live on.

[NEOWatcher]

fix'd
I believe the comment was aimed at the title. Similar to my death row baby (http://www.bautforum.com/1091219-post78.html) post.

[Noclevername]

It also assumes that a vampire's bite is what makes you a vampire, a solely 20th-century and later assumption (post-Bram Stoker, IIRC). Earlier vampire myths had different causes.

[KaiYeves]

Eventually, I think a vampire would bite somebody with AIDS, and then you wouldn't need a stake, you could just sneeze on them.

[phaishazamkhan]

I believe the comment was aimed at the title. Similar to my death row baby (http://www.bautforum.com/1091219-post78.html) post.

oh. dear. facepalm.jpg
sorry

[Noclevername]

Eventually, I think a vampire would bite somebody with AIDS, and then you wouldn't need a stake, you could just sneeze on them.

They're walking corpses, they don't need to worry about germs, just maggots.

EDIT: EW, yuck, I grossed myself out. Never post first thing in the mornoinng before caffeine.

[publiusr]

Actually Einstein's ghost told me that his walking thru walls was no problem, although he wasn't wild about the string theory that permitted it.

He then said he didn't believe in psychic powers to speak with the dead--at which time his voice abruptly ceased.

[Noclevername]

It must be getting close to holloween.


<Nitpick> Halloween </Nitpick>

[Noclevername]

The article's three years for the whole human race timeline also seems to assume that no one ever fights back, that vampires can just bite whomever they want at will. As more people disappear or change their habits, someone will notice and investigate, and eventually, the news will get out.

[Michael Noonan]

This bit is about the vampire bat from National Geographic here (http://www.nationalgeographic.com/kids/creature_feature/0110/bats2.html)

There is a survey if you click on the link so just this bite here :eek:
Rather than sucking blood, vampire bats make a small cut with their teeth and then lap up the flowing blood with their tongues.

Apparently they sometimes do not even wake the creature they are feeding on as they are so gentle. :shifty:

Oh that and they share blood with other members that didn't find a feed. I am not so much concerned about vampires as interested in the highly developed social network of the vampire bat :cool:

The reality is that I am one who feels a sense of living in a fantasy. The fantasy is lived by those who think they have the sense to control reality.

[phaishazamkhan]

Apparently they sometimes do not even wake the creature they are feeding on as they are so gentle. :shifty:

I always thought that vampire bat saliva had anaesthetic qualities in addition to anticoagulant compounds in the spit.

[Noclevername]

So, aside from filling a few column inches at pumpkin-time, does this actually "prove" anything other than that Costas Efthimiou knows jack about both popular myths? And that he sucks at thought experiments?

[KaiYeves]

So, aside from filling a few column inches at pumpkin-time, does this actually "prove" anything other than that Costas Efthimiou knows jack about both popular myths?
It's called a "teachable moment". You use popular topics to teach science.
Example: Little kid knows you're interested in space and asks if the Transformers actually visited Mars.
You tell him that they didn't "But some other really cool robots did."
"Really?"
"Yeah, first these two called Viking, and then this one called Sojourner..."