Events
Vampires have long been featured in books and movies. But is there a scientific basis for the existence of these creations? Are there certain facts about blood-sucking creatures?
Bodies with leaked blood must have frightened gravediggers in the past. Tropical diseases, as well as insects that feed on blood and leave corpses dry and empty, seemed frightening to other peoples. The fact that fear may have grown into superstitious ideas, as well as the presence of clear biological and anthropological conditions, may have led to this kind of fear.
Applying scientific hypotheses to fictional beings is nothing new. This is what Dr. Katherine Ramsland, who teaches forensic psychology at the university and writes the book The Science of Vampires, says.
Addressing the origins of the myth, she asks: “Does this stem from mythology, which eliminates the main fear — the fear of death, or from a lack of knowledge about the decomposition of the body, or from the symptoms of a mental illness currently known as “clinical vampirism”? I mean, does this express some societies' need for a myth, or could a vampire tale be an attempt to explain the horrifying phenomenon that happened in reality?”
But let's get back to science. The researchers turned directly to scientists (biologists, anthropologists and physicists) to find out once and for all whether vampires could exist, and how plausible they are today's movies are about them.
Fear of sunlight. Some elements of vampire legends are skillfully combined around facts into a scary whole. Vampires are usually depicted as dark creatures, being very sensitive to sunlight. This fact is real, it is a disease that applies to people suffering from porphyria, a known condition that causes allergies to the sun. When people are in the sun, they immediately develop swelling and blisters on their skin.
Porphyria is a very rare disease, unlike its cousin, which has a similar allergic reaction. This type of allergic reaction is characterized by the appearance of rashes in open areas of the skin when exposed to the sun. But it's actually not an allergy to the sun, it's an immune response.
Immortality. Dracula is considered not just a long-lived person, but literally immortal. Ramsland believes that there is a scientific basis to explain this aspect of the myth, referring to what scientists call “immortalized cells.” The aging process is partly based on the lifespan of our cells, as long as they continue to divide, we stay young and our cell structure, called telomeres, plays a role in cell division.
What controls telomeres? Ramsland explains that the activity of telomerase enzymes prolongs the life of youthful telomeres. In other words, there are chemicals in our cells that can hold the secret of eternal youth, and if so, that could explain the eternal life of vampires.
Drink blood. According to Dr. Manuel Alvarez, mosquitoes, bats and some other creatures drink blood, and humans only rarely do so when they are seriously deficient in iron. Those who suffer from iron deficiency may have a serious need for a large portion of this element, and they can eat iron-rich spinach or a steak filled with blood.
Naturally, the desire to eat human blood and the need for iron are different things. This may not explain the mythological stories about vampires, but it may explain one of the characteristics of these creatures.
Killing people. Physicists Kostas Efthimiou and Shohang Gandhi talk about their findings based on physical science facts. In their 2007 paper, Cinema vs. Reality: Ghosts, Vampires and Zombies, the couple developed a mathematical formula for calculating the number of people who survived x months of vampirism, which has spread to a population of size n: x-2n+1.
“We came to the conclusion that if the first vampire appeared on January 1, 1600 AD, humanity should have been exterminated two years later in 1602,” explains in the document. “As a result, we've concluded that vampires can't exist because their existence is contrary to human existence.”