StarTalk Radio - Zombie Apocalypse (Part 1)

Episode Date: June 2, 2013

There’s no escaping the Zombie Apocalypse when Neil deGrasse Tyson interviews Max Brooks, author of World War Z and the world’s leading “authority” on these nonexistent killers. Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ on Apple Podcasts to listen to new episodes ad-free and a whole week early.

Welcome to StarTalk, your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide. StarTalk begins right now. Welcome to StarTalk Radio. I'm your host, Neil deGrasse Tyson. I'm an astrophysicist with the American Museum of Natural History right here in New York City, where I also serve as director of the Hayden Planetarium. This week, my co-host is the one, the only, Eugene Merman. Eugene, welcome back. Hello. Great to be back.

You like my co-hosts so often now. I know. Is that a good thing or not? I don't know. I think it's a great thing for both of us and for the world mostly the world and then us you know this this show topic is long overdue you know this is going to be about the zombie apocalypse yes the living coming back to life well or never quite dying enough to be not dead enough. Yeah. And, you know, zombies, I have to admit, I am a little surprised how popular the genre has become. How popular zombies are. Yeah.

I don't understand it. I mean, it's not like. Well, are zombies the dead risen or are they simply sort of very sick people who bite and are powerful? Are they simply sort of very sick people who bite and are powerful? So rather than me being the one who answers that, we thought I'd like check with others who've thought long and hard about this. Sean Penn. We'll get to that in just a moment. Because zombies, in fact, have been analogized to viruses, the spread of disease. And if you think of a disease, not as a human being wanted to bite you with their limbs falling off, but as the vector delivering vessel of a way to get sick.

As a tiny, invisible human being the size of a virus. One way to do it. So, you know, so we combed the land and we needed to find the most virus fluent person we could. And we came up with Dr. Ian Lipkin. Doctor, welcome to StarTalk Radio. A pleasure to be here. I got to read your title.

You are like professor of epidemiology, neurology, and pathology at Columbia University. And you also direct the Center for Infection and Immunity, which is a lab focused on microbe hunting and chronic diseases. That, you know, and now I noticed you didn't shake hands with anyone when you walked in here. I don't know what petri dish you've been digging in before you arrived. Yeah, at first I thought it was to save yourself, but now I realize it's to save me. To save human beings from yourself. And you're also director of the Northeast Biodefense Center. I didn't even know such a thing existed.

What is that? That's part of our role is to make sure you don't know who we are. That's right. But you're bio defending me, I would hope. We are. You ever consult on the movie Contagion? Yes, many times. What?

Did you do your homework before you came here? No, I'm just guessing. I mean, look at the thing. Okay, so you're not only professor, we study this stuff, but you've been tapped by pop culture for this expertise. So how did Contagion do as a movie? Did they get it right? It did well. No, no, I mean scientifically, did they?

It did well scientifically, too. If you say so yourself. Well, you know, I didn't have any of the back end, if that's what you're asking, but I was paid. Always get the back end. Yeah, well, I didn't know that at the time. It's fine. I know now. But actually actually it was fairly accurate we did not tackle zombies no not in the movie but but we wanted to find out why they relate to each other at all in fact for this show i have you as my sort of expert

in-house scientist commentator on an interview that i captured with Max Brooks, who, if you're into sort of who's genetically related to whom out there, he's the son of Mel Brooks, it turns out. One of the top Brooks's in the world. And I didn't know this guy is like one of the world's experts on zombies. And it was my interview with him where I first learned of this sort of sociocultural analog between zombies and disease. And I bumped into him when we were at Comic-Con 2012 in San Diego. Crazy place.

It's crazy as I'd ever imagined it to be. But let's pick up with my interview with Max Brooks. And we've got Dr. Lipkin here to help us react to it. Just to put Max Brooks on your radar, he's the author of the book The Zombie Survival Guide and World War Z, which is an oral history of the zombie war. And in fact, that book is becoming a movie titled World War Z starring guess who? Matt Damon. That's close enough. Brad Pitt.

Brad Pitt. One of the leading men of the day. Yeah, yeah. I feel like I'm not wrong. Let's check out my first clip and see where he takes us and leaves us in this story i based the zombie virus on aids because the transmittability on the transmittability because i wanted to make it very hard to get just like aids was very hard to get and therefore from a storytelling point of view the mistakes were made by us because the truth is let's face it, if in 1980 Reagan had gone on TV and said,

my fellow Americans, there's a disease that's real hard to get, but if you get it, it's going to be really bad. Here's 10 things you can do to avoid it. Boom. AIDS would have been a paragraph in a medical journal. So it's just some exotic cases. Right. It would have been, oh, remember that weird disease in the 80s? We called it GRID.

So I wanted to make it about our mistakes. You're saying we could have rendered AIDS extinct. We could have made AIDS extinct with a pamphlet. That's how we could have stopped it. Because we're not talking about influenza. We're not talking about Ebola Reston. We're talking about something that's really hard to get. Like airborne viruses, sneeze-borne viruses.

It's not cholera. It's not waterborne. It's so hard to get. But through our mistakes as a society, we let the genie out of the bottle. So this formed an infectious disease model for you. Yeah, that was purely my model because I'm 40 years old. So I'm a child of the AIDS generation. Yay.

Okay. So there's a zombie virus, I guess. Right, there's a zombie virus. It's out there. You just declare it and then you could treat it like it's a biological weapon, I guess. Right, there's a zombie virus. It's out there. You just declare it, and then you could treat it like it's a biological weapon, in a sense. Right. And my attitude is I'm not as interested in the origins as I am in the reaction. Because, quite frankly, I don't care where AIDS came from.

You know, I love green monkeys. Good for you guys. But what I care about is how we reacted to it. Doctor, this is the first time I'd heard zombies analogize to infectious disease, and he went right out in an implicated sort of AIDS as something that could have been stopped on the spot. And I think I'd heard that in some other circles, but you live in this. How do you see that assessment? Well, if only that were true.

Oh, okay. So it's a little oversimplified. So in 1981 to 84, I was in San Francisco when this virus first appeared. First of all, it took us a while to figure out what it was. And that's also true. You're groping in the dark.

Right, right. We have no idea. And we were looking at whether or not people had overexposure to different types of drugs. And we had the wrong virus a couple of times and we finally figured out what a couple of times and we finally figured out what it was but even then i don't think a pamphlet would have changed the

course what if the pamphlet was huge like what if is it that it's just too small that's an interesting thought i hadn't considered the possibility of a pamphlet let's say two feet by four feet blanketing the united states no your issue is not that it wasn't read enough, but that even a pamphlet that was read perfectly would not have worked. Because people already knew about STDs, and they didn't care about those. STDs have been with us since the beginning of time, and I don't think they're going anywhere. The Big Bang? That's right. That was one of the things.

That is the literal beginning of time. He meant the beginning of humans on Earth. Give him a break here. Herpes flew out of a star at Earth. Big Bang might have been an orgasm. Who knows? We've got to take a quick break. Thanks, God.

We'll come right back with Dr. Lipkin and my co-host, Eugene Murman. We're talking about zombies. We're talking about viruses. We're StarTalk Radio. I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson. I'm here in studio with Eugene Merman. Hello. Eugene, as always, tweeting at Eugene Merman.

Yes. Yes, I follow you. You make me laugh. Thank you. Not every single tweet, but enough that I stay with you. Exactly. And I learn from you almost every time. Joining me, straight from Columbia, Columbia University, Dr. Ian Lipkin, who studies viruses.

This is what this man does. And does he bathe every hour? I don't know. Is he a walker? I don't know where he's been or where he's going. But he's an expert on this stuff. And we left the last segment with my interview with Max Roach. Max Roach, that's the guy from Little Rascals.

Max Brooks. Max Brooks. Zombie expert. He's a zombie expert expert and we analogize zombies to the aids virus and you were concerned about how he oversimplifies this uh how rapidly it it could have been um the spread could have been prevented i guess i want to go on record as saying that i'm very concerned about zombies okay excellent they keep me up at night excellent the only apocalypse any of us should ever actually worry about.

You've heard it here first. So I guess a big challenge. You were in San Francisco when AIDS broke out. And a big challenge there is finding the patient zero, I guess, right? And at some point, this came from animals, right? I mean. Yes, 70%. Animals other than humans, yes. Yes, 70% of the diseases we're concerned about,

these emerging diseases, come from animals. Like mad cow, I guess. Well, mad cow disease, West Nile virus, influenza, rabies. SARS. SARS. SARS is an acronym for what? Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome. Okay, that means you don't really know.

You kind of said it a little slowly where you were like, I could define it right now for everyone. No, but it doesn't have a fancy name yet. You're just spelling it out. It's a pretty good name. SARS. It's not bad. I like it. It's catchy. I would have a band with that name if I had.

Literally. I should play music. So all diseases aren't spread the same way, clearly. And this must have been part of your greatest challenges at the beginning of this. Yeah, so there are diseases that are spread through the blood supply respiratory tract fecal material urine all kinds of ways and people do weird stuff with human excrement people do very weird stuff right there's a lot of punk rockers in danger of getting a bunch of weird disease right right so you gotta be on your toes for this. But the most efficient one is always blood.

That's the best. That's my favorite. If you really. I mean, if I was going to give someone a disease. If you want to be a virus. But the other one, of course, is sexually transmitted diseases. And they frequently is a lot of overlap. Uh-huh.

Cool. Because people, you know. Yeah, but people don't exchange blood every day. No, that's true. As a typical. Because they don't make bonds every day. But they certainly do exchange other bodily fluids. Name four. For sure.'s true. As a typical. Because they don't make bonds every day. But they certainly do exchange other bodily fluids. Name four.

For sure. Just kidding. Please don't. So how did you go about finding, so the first AIDS was isolated when? The virus. Well, so the virus was discovered in 83, but I didn't discover that virus. It was discovered really by. No one's blaming you.

By a French team. So I was an observer, but I was impressed by the fact that it took us so long to figure out what it was. How long had it been infecting people before you guys isolated it? Oh, the first documented case of HIV infection goes back to 59, but it really surfaced in a major way in 80, 81. So you went back to 59 once you knew what to look for, and then you looked at the journals of symptoms.

It's the royal we, so I didn't do any of that work. I got you. It's science. It's science, yeah. Medical science. So you went back to 59 once you knew what to look for and then you looked at the journals of symptoms. It's the royal we. So I didn't do any of that. I got you. It's science. It's science, yeah. Medical science. Yes, yes. My buddies, yes.

Yeah, your brethren in the community. Yes, yes. So, all right. So the earliest case is once you dig through the books in 1959, but it starts showing a big in early 80s, obviously. Correct. You isolated in 83. Then what do you do? Along with New Wave, not blaming, just saying.

Well, then the first thing you want to try to do is to develop a diagnostic test so you can figure out who has it, who doesn't yet have symptoms. And you can protect the blood supply so you can test blood. Oh, for blood donors, of course. Exactly, for blood donors. And then everybody starts focusing and trying to make a vaccine, right? I remember having a conversation in 94 with some senior virologists who said to me, you shouldn't work on HIV, Ian. We're going to solve this one with a vaccine within the next six months.

So this is now 20-plus years later, and we're still nowhere near a vaccine. So why were they overconfident? They just had too high, their ideals too high? Or did they think they were smarter? They thought they were smarter than they actually were. This was really new. I mean, nobody really had seen a virus that had the ability to change its shape so dramatically, so quickly.

Shapeshifting virus. A shapeshifting virus. But I'm glad they were cocky about how quickly they could solve it nonetheless. They're like, I've never seen this before but I'm pretty sure I could definitely solve this. That is really cocky. And so AIDS, from what I can tell about this,

from what I could tell, what made it hard is that you get infected but you don't know you're infected for a little while so there's this period where you keep infecting people before you even know you're susceptible. And that period's So there's this period where you keep infecting people before you even know you're susceptible. And that period's years, like decades. It can be. Yeah.

Well, let's pick up my interview with Max Brooks, who has analogized for us the zombie apocalypse with this spread of virus. And my whole conversation with him was infused with these kinds of references. And like I said, we met up with him at Comic-Con 2012 in San Diego. Yes. Let's check out what more he has to say. In my stories, you have to get bitten or the virus has to get in your bloodstream. You get sick, you die, then you wake up again. As a zombie. As a zombie. Your body has been carjacked by the zombie virus. Wait a minute. If I'm bitten by a zombie, it won't kill me. I

have to wait to die for some other cause. No, no, no. It will kill you. It will kill me. It will kill you within hours or days, but you're going down. By the way, there's been about 110 billion people who have ever lived. Not all those people are eligible zombies. No. Because their bone... Oh, no, no, no. You've got to be fresh.

It's not like suddenly the graveyards of the world are going to erupt forth. Oh. No, no, no. How fresh? Alive. They got to be alive and then die and then come back. So really fresh. Really fresh.

Like embalmed fresh. Not even that. If a zombie walks into a morgue, sounds like a joke. Zombie walks into a morgue. Zombie walks into a morgue, for some reason starts biting dead bodies. Those dead bodies aren't going to come back to life. They're gone. Once you die, you die.

Literally, if I'm running from a zombie and he's about to eat me and I suddenly have a heart attack and die and then he bites me, I ain't coming back. Okay. So zombies crawling out of graves is the wrong image that you're – No, no. Especially because, let's face it, how many people today are buried, especially in America, in these zinc boxes? Oh, even if it was a wooden box they're not getting out no that's like this a cemetery able-bodied human thermic can get out of a box that's it that's it that's it no i always say a cemetery is one of the safest places to be because all the dead bodies are basically

locked up in safes okay so we shouldn't fear cemeteries anymore don't fear cemetery okay so just to clarify you're a zombie chasing me. You bite me. I become a zombie. Right. I bite you. And all my muscles are intact. Right. Step one, I'm a zombie. I'm chasing you.

Step two, I bite you. Step three, you get away and you go, oh, I got away. Oh, but I got this nasty bite. Step three, you get sick and die. Step four, you wake up as a zombie. And what's the time between dying and waking up? It depends on how badly I've bitten you. If I've, let's say, tore out a major blood vessel, you're going to die very soon.

But if I scratch you, it may take days. Gotcha. And so when I saw, forgive me, I don't even remember what movie it is because there's so many zombie films out there. So one of them was their best friend got a scratch and they knew he was a goner. That happens a lot. And so he said, shoot me in the head now. So there's an interesting dynamic tension. Right. Because they're your friend and they're not yet a lot. You'll have six months But you won't really be living Right You'll be thinking about dying Every day Every day So

My interview with With Max Brooks there So Dr. Lipkin You The fundamental variance here Is that some diseases Have a longer incubation time

Where you are dangerous to others Whether or not you know it And that's That's got to be The worst kind of virus there is uh well there it depends i mean we have this another one i don't know ebola sounds pretty bad too you're like you have years where you can still make omelets that's not as bad about like when blood comes out your face and you die sounds worse yeah they're into me there are some viruses

that cause very little disease but they spread very rapidly and very easily. And there's some viruses, I think, Eddie Murphy talked about herpes simplex. You know, you keep it forever like luggage. You keep it like luggage, you know. You never get rid of it. But most people don't die. People don't normally die from herpes. And Ebola is definitely a bad one to have.

My major concern with his. What's your least favorite? But if you're a zombie This is sort of like a Ponzi scheme Because eventually you run out of bodies Right, right, right So you bite somebody It's a self-defeating virus

Yeah, it's a self-defeating virus I'm just particularly concerned Because once you know you are infected Then a responsible person could keep their distance They could If you don't know you're infected Just like AIDS And you are infected

That makes you especially dangerous in you are infected that makes you especially dangerous in society isn't that correct it is true so virus has different lifestyles some kill their host very rapidly or they kill some portion of the host like the respiratory tract flu viruses things like this but because they can always find another victim easily they survive they evolve and they they take over and they do quite well and they float out of your body through the air and sneeze and there you go. Exactly. And some of them are spread in fecal material and so forth. You're like, it's all through these seeds.

We got to take another break. You're listening to StarTalk Radio, the zombie virus edition. We'll be right back. Welcome back to StarTalk Radio. You know, you can find us on the web at www.startalkradio.net. We're also likable on Facebook Eugene, are we likable? I think so, yeah I'm just confirming that

Totally likable We're here with Dr. Ian Lipkin Who's a professor of everything virally nasty at Columbia I don't know if that's on his business card But Dr. Lipkin He probably said something clearer Thanks for being on StarTalk We're analyzing sort of a zombie apocalypse,

but analogizing that to the spread of viruses. And we've got clips from my interview with Max Brooks, who's in fact, he wrote the book on which, you know, zombie apocalypse stories have been based. If somebody catches this interview in the wrong place, they're going to think that you are really getting information about actual zombies and Actual zombies. And how to actually survive.

They just have to listen from the beginning. Yeah, well. That's called the rewind button. I look forward to the four that don't. Let's go straight to my clip with Max Brooks. And we talk about how you spread viruses, not through sex, not through kissing or other traditional bodily fluids, but by the simple

bite. Let's find out what, but by the simple bite. Let's find out what he said. Sexy bite. Why is the zombie compelled to bite you? Why do they even care? It's their biological imperative to spread the virus. Through the eating, they're not ingesting nutrition, but it is an act that is familiar to their DNA. They already know how to eat, and that's the best way to spread the virus is to bite.

So they're a perfect viral organism in that respect. They are a walking plague. They have no other point but to spread what they are. They're literally a virus. Okay, so why does it seem like, in some movies I've seen, where zombies attack a person, and it looks like they want to eat them, like vultures around a carcass? Because more than one of them don't have to attack the same woman. Right, no, no.

And they are eating. They're not smart enough to know that if you eat too much of the person, it won't be mobile enough to keep going. But there's nothing more primal in the human mind than to eat, than to bring food to your mouth. That's it. We know that. Infants do that.

From infants. They bring it to your mouth even if it's not food. Exactly. And therefore, the virus doesn't have to teach the zombie to do that so doctor the aids is transmitted sexually but it's a blood exchange at some level correct it's at some level yeah all right so if you're if you have aids and you bite someone you can give them aids through your bite in principle no no no oh okay not even a little what if you bite their ding dong just curious that's that's the after hours show we can try that so but but clearly though rabies is among those that are bite transmitted that's the way

it's typically transmitted so it's a saliva to blood right so the virus grows very very high levels in the salivary glands so it's in the saliva and one of the things that happens as as animals get into the later stages of rabies is that they have difficulty swallowing. And they also become very aggressive. And they bite other animals, not to eat them, but again, just because they're aggressive. So this feature of the virus changing the behavior of the host is in the service of the survival of the virus. Yes. The propagation of the virus.

That's certainly a way of looking at it. If people had rabies, would they want to bite people? Yeah, that's a good question. Well, that hasn't, you know, there aren't a lot of people who have been observed in those stages of rabies. Like rabies colonies, right. Most of the time, yeah, most of the time. That's something we should do with prisoners, just to see. That's right.

Okay, Eugene. Most of the time, it's like just dogs. Just an idea. Yeah. So that's interesting. So had that virus triggered dogs to rest peacefully in the corner, then the rabies virus would render itself extinct. Probably so. Wow.

So all the variations of the rabies virus, the one that makes you want to bite other dogs or other mammals, that's the virus that propagates itself. That's the evolutionary sound. So the virus, for a virus to succeed, it can't kill all of the hosts. And it certainly can't kill the host in which it's living until it has an opportunity. Because it's rude? Until it has an opportunity to jump into a new one. Yes, you have to live long enough to spread it.

Right, exactly. Otherwise, it will die. Because I heard that that's true about cholera, for example If cholera is too effective You can't even move to another place and infect someone with it So the virus kills you and nobody else It's got to just have a little bit of time delay Yeah But the other thing that cholera does

Which is really interesting Is that it causes diarrhea Yeah So that lots of viruses spread out into the environment cholera does which is really which is really interesting is it it causes diarrhea yeah so that so that lots of viruses spread out into the environment so that it can find new hosts into the water supply purposefully doing right so well i guess the the cholera that made you constipated uh would die wouldn't do very well that made you poo Right. That's its slogan if it had a chance. Poo to live. Yeah, poo to live.

It's a slogan. I'm just trying to help cholera market itself. I can't get that out of my head now. Viruses with slogans. Yeah. Eventually they're going to have to fight each other once they kill us all. So professionally, what viruses are you guys most worried about today? It's the 21st century.

Top three in order. What is it? HIV. Still. Still for me is the big one. That's too bad. I mean, it's still out there. Something like Ebola or things that like make you bleed out of your face if you look at

someone or however. How does it? Well, if you're asking me what bothers me most in terms of the state of the world, it really is HIV. It's HIV. And number two would be influenza. And number three would be the one i don't know about because we're seeing new things all the time and one of the greatest sources of

unknown viruses is other mammals yeah and that's a reminder how genetically we're related we're related to them because if you can jump species as far as the the virus is concerned, it's just another kind of mammal, right? It's not, that's correct. We're not going to ever catch Dutch elm disease. I have a question. I know.

Hold that, hold that for the break. After the break, you're listening to star talk radio. We're talking about viruses. We're talking about zombies. We're talking about getting bitten and dying. We'll be right back.

Welcome back to StarTalk Radio. You know, we tweet at StarTalk Radio. Check it out. You get to find out where all our live shows are and when we tweet at StarTalk Radio. Check it out. You get to find out where all our live shows are and when we're on the air, when we're not, who our guests are. Go ahead and follow us there. Now, today's subject is zombies, viruses. So I've got the zombie expert in clips that we obtained

from my last trip to... You recorded him at Comic-Con. At Comic-Con. And so I got that side of it, and I got the viral side of it with Dr. Ian Lipkin from up at Columbia University, one of the world's experts on viruses and how they transmit.

And could you just give us some Virus 101 here? Are they alive? And what the hell are they? Just, you know, in 30 seconds, can you do that? In 30 seconds. Actually, why don't we start off with the Max Brooks clip? Because he's going to talk about the science of zombies, and then we can talk about the science of the virus. I'm looking forward to this.

Coming right after that. Sure, let's do it. Let's hit that clip with Max Brooks. Check it out. Now, I assume you saw that research paper on zombies that came out maybe a year ago or so. It treated zombies in a predator-prey calculation. Did that get a lot of mileage in your circles? Oh, yeah. No, what I love is that you're starting to get genuine thinkers. You're starting to get genuine academics and smart

people who are really looking at a zombie plague from an academic point of view. There was a Canadian mathematician who did a model, a mathematical model of how the zombie virus would spread. I thought it was brilliant. I think that was the paper I saw. Yes, yes. There's a gentleman from Harvard, Dr. Steve Schlossman, who wrote a book on the brain patterns of zombies. And he described it. Now, what is, now, come on.

Was this from the medical school? Yes. The Harvard Medical School? Harvard Medical School. And I mean, look, you've got to give him a break. I mean, it's not like he went to Yale. All right. So what is he imagining is the brain pattern? And I mean, look, you've got to give him a break. I mean, it's not like he went to Yale. All right.

So what is he imagining is the brain pattern? Well, he describes it as the crocodile brain. He describes that the frontal lobes of the zombies have deteriorated and the higher brain functions have gone with them. And it's the lower brain functions, the more basic. Basic survival. Right. Eat. Eat and move, which is what a crocodile brain is, and that's why he calls it that.

Is that why crocodiles don't have foreheads? I've never asked one. I've never gotten close enough to ask one. Dr. Lipkin, what is a virus? I'm still trying to get my brain around a crocodile brain. A crocodile. A virus is a It's a piece of Genetic information That's wrapped up

In protein We used to call The very famous Virologist Once referred to A virus as a Piece of bad news Wrapped up in a

Protein coat What they do is They inject It's evil beef jerky Evil Very evil beef jerky Why can't you Have good viruses

You can have good viruses Alright then So don't implicate the entire group. What's the best virus? Is there one that makes you super strong or you can fly? Yeah, how about a virus that makes us smarter? Why don't you come up with one of those? Or like a spider who is also a man. Just an example.

That's terrific. I'll get right to work on it. I'm sure Columbia would be excited about the intellectual property with that one. Yes, if you make an actual Spider-Man, you then re-own, you get it from Stan Lee. Now, viruses are much, much smaller than bacteria, right? Yes. Like a thousandth the size or something.

There's some large ones now that have been discovered recently that you can actually visualize under a microscope. Like the size of an antelope or a human foot? Of a hangnail, because that's what the rest of us do under a microscope. But if you can But they're so small Most of them are very very small That creates one of the challenges Of dealing with them I guess

So what they do is They go into a cell And they hijack the machinery Of the cell And they turn the cell Over to their own design So they start making Genes and proteins

And basically hijacking the cell. They're not only evil, they're diabolical. They are diabolical. They're the Saddam Hussein of whatever that would be an analogy. Brian Mallow, who's called a science comedian, one of my favorite jokes of his was a virus walks into a bar. The bartender says, sorry, we don't serve viruses. So the virus turns him into a bartender that does and then orders his drink. A little bit of bio humor there.

But most viruses that you care about are the bad kind, I presume. Yes. And so what does the CDC do, the Center for Disease Control? Are they protecting us or is it only you with your organization up there? I'm certainly not going to touch that one directly. So the CDC has, they have got a mandate to protect us against all sorts of things, including tracking viruses all over the world, bacteria, ensuring the safety of the food supply. Tracking viruses. So you've got to know where they're coming, where they're going, so you can put a gate there, presumably.

I mean, a metaphorical gate. Yeah, we have to be able to figure out where they're coming from, where they're going, how they're evolving. North Korea. How we can, right. You know, we haven't looked for viruses in North Korea. Because you can't get there, can't touch this. An interesting idea. Let's go.

The three of us in my jet. So there could be viruses brewing that you know nothing about because they haven't actually spread to noticeable places yet. We estimate that there's somewhere between 500,000 and a million viruses That are yet to be discovered Well, get to work, man So it's a growth industry When we come back to StarTalk Radio

Right now, I mean We're learning about the biology of viruses And why they're bad And I didn't know that there were some good viruses I know, I can't wait to find out about two good viruses We're talking with Ian Lipkin And I, of course, got Eugene Merman for StarTalk. Welcome back to StarTalk Radio.

I'm your host, Neil deGrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist. By the way, I also tweet the universe. Don't expect them to contain current events, although they occasionally do. It's mostly cosmic brain droppings, really. That's all it is. I've got Eugene Merman here, my co-host, and the continued clips from my interview from Comic-Con with Max Brooks, who's the world's leading authority on the non-existent thing called zombies, which we've analogized to the spread of disease. Self-appointed, but agreed. Self-appointed. I've got Dr. Ian Lipkin here from Columbia.

And let's go straight to my final clip with Max Brooks. I think he was talking about if you know you're going to die, what does that do? What anxieties descend upon you? Let's find out. So why is it that the zombies are always, they look like they're in pain as though they had died a horrible death? Right. Well, for me, the slouching thing from a storyteller point of view, it builds the drama of anxiety. Because, you know, the difference between fear and anxiety.

No, I don't. Tell me. Well, for me, it's the difference. I know literally, but surely there's a storytelling. Well, in my mind, the difference between the reason I don't do fast zombies, it's the difference between getting shot and getting cancer. You're attacked by a fast zombie, you'll be dead before you know it. But slow zombies, you can outrun them.

It's a tortoise and the hare. But you know they're coming. You board up the windows and doors of your house and they're banging. So it's all about exploiting the anxiety as you tell your story. Yes, it's about pulling out that anxiety, those sleepless nights of knowing that it's coming for you. That's diabolical. You're an evil man. I'm just expressing my own obsessive compulsive neuroses.

Because every time I see zombies struggling down the street, I say to myself, why don't we make a zombie that can run and outrun you? But that's no fun. No, and they do. And there's plenty of fast zombie movies, but to me that's not scary because it's over. You're done. It's the difference also, like, when you skydive, you say, oh my God, oh my God, oh my God. Boom, you're on the ground.

When you scuba dive, there's plenty of time to think of all the ways you can die. When you scuba dive, there's plenty of time to think of all the ways you can die. So if you are so much faster than zombies, why do they always catch up to people? You underestimate them. You always think, I'm going to sprint. And then you tire yourself out and you go take a nap. And you get some distance and they're over the horizon. Right. And you get complacent.

And then you go take a nap and you wake up and you're being eaten. This whole zombie thing could be solved by simply going to Martha's Vineyard. Is that right? For what it sounds like. I've been there once, but I, so, so Dr. Lipkin, uh, do we underestimate the, the threat of viruses in our culture? I'm sure you don't underestimate them cause you work with them daily, but do you think other people are too complacent and it'll catch up with us?

Well, if we don't fund research on viruses, we're going to be in difficult straits. We'll all vote to fund it. Are there any good viruses and what do they do? Yeah, yeah. So we heard about bad viruses. There's got to be, all viruses can't be bad. No, no. There are several.

There are people who are now using viruses to introduce genes for people who have disorders like Alzheimer's and diabetes and Parkinson's. And using viruses to make vaccines. And there's a very cool story. That's because viruses are cleverer than we are about how to make that happen. Well, we engineer them. We put things into them and use them as delivery vehicles. Right, because they know how to get in a virus and mess with the DNA in ways that we can't.

Right, and they can produce some product that's useful. And there are people who are using viruses now to purify things like gold and to make electric circuits. So they're being used now for nanotechnology. So viruses are very interesting. So this is the basis. You can use a virus to make better gold. Sounds safe.

You can make viruses that will specifically bind to gold or platinum, and you can flow seawater over them and capture it and concentrate it. Wow. Yeah. It's alchemy. So viruses is our future. And you've never, you ever steal a virus and put it in someone's soup? Not like a deadly one, but just like, I don't like you and I'm going to make you sick for a minute. Yeah, they tend to die in soup.

Well, maybe a gazpacho then? Cold gazpacho. Solutions. I'll help you think of a solution. So a virus, so that's extraordinary. So the future of virologists is one not only of curing disease, but of transforming life. Where alchemy left off, virology picks up. Apparently.

Yes. He answered yes to that question. I know. It's true. Viruses are great. They're the best. I'm going to get a bag of viruses and sift through it asking them questions. Okay.

So now we need viruses to fight other viruses, maybe. True. Now, here's something I always wanted to sort of confirm. We create antibodies to viruses when we're exposed to them at a very low level, correct? That's correct. Okay, so why doesn't that work for every virus that we've ever found? Because there are some viruses that we haven't seen before, so we can't mount immune responses to them.

Now, fortunately, we have recently discovered, and you should tell Max Brooks about this, a virus that kills zombies. And we plan to disseminate this virus. What's the virus? is it like spinach is it a fake virus or is it a real virus that prevents people from coming back from the dead but i promise we're not going to do this prior to the release of his movie oh yeah there you go you do it after and then everyone goes to interview him for how to secure the zombie i'm sure the movie has its own solution, uh, like,

you know, cutting people's heads off. Yeah. Yeah. Something, a nice, simple solution, blow up the head.

Everyone's fine. So doctors, anything, we're running low on time. Anything that we, you need to tell us, tell our listeners from the point of view of someone who plays with deadly viruses daily.

Support our work. Support. Nothing more ominous could be said. Not wear a condom. Not wear a condom. Not wash your hands. Everyone knows to wear a condom. Everyone funds someone trying to cure wearing a condom.

That's what he's saying. You give me money, you don't need any more condoms. Thank you, Dr. Lipkin, for being on StarTalk Radio. A pleasure. Now we know how to kill zombies and stay more healthy. And Eugene, you're always good. You've been listening to StarTalk Radio, brought to you in part by a grant

from the National Science Foundation. I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson. As always, I bid you to keep looking up.