Vampire Myths = Real Life?
The final movie in the Twilight saga opened at the Maryland Science Center’s IMAX Theater last week. Whenever I hear the word “vampire” I automatically think of the blood-sucking villains from the scary stories I heard growing up. While I know that’s not “real life,” there’s actually some solid science behind many of the myths and legends in vampire tales.
Among the tales and myths is one I’ve always been the most curious about: garlic. Why it is that garlic can protect you from a vampire bite? Scientifically speaking, garlic can be used for medicinal purposes. Garlic cloves contain an ingredient called allicin that can act as an anti-bacterial medicine similar to forms of penicillin. This article explains how the ingredients in garlic can improve your health or prevent certain illnesses.
Ever wonder why vampires are frequently associated with nighttime? Perhaps they take lessons from their animal counterpart, the vampire bat. Bats are nocturnal animals, meaning they sleep during the day and search for food at nights. They are small mammals, so it is safer for them to venture out after sunset. It also makes finding food easier, as insects or smaller creatures are least expecting danger at night. Bats use a technique called “echolocation” to see in the dark. They send out sound signals and determine obstacles in their flight path by analyzing the echo received from the sound signals.
Watching Twilight has made me curious about vampires’ hesitation to sunlight. Hesitation might be putting it lightly if you’ve watched any of True Blood or other vampire-related TV shows. Certain amounts of strong UV or infrared light can be detrimental to vampires. But what’s important is how UV rays can affect our skin as well. On the surface (literally), too much sun can cause early wrinkles and sunspots, or freckles. Sunlight can also cause the skin to stretch abnormally, leading to sagging in places you might not want it. Strong sunlight can also affect your health in the long run. While I can gather a guess that vampires don’t just stay out of the sun to prevent skin cancer, it’s quite likely that the stories about their gravitation towards darkness might, in some way, have formed around the sun’s harmful ways.
I’ve also wondered how it’s possible that a vampire bite can penetrate skin so easily. While our incisor teeth (also known as fangs) might not be as sharp as a vampire’s, they are the largest teeth in our mouths and are used for cutting food as we chew. To see how your incisor teeth function, check out this article. Other mammals’ incisor teeth are more prominent, allowing them to take larger bites and more easily penetrate the skin of insects, animals, or other types of food.
Of all the aspects in vampire mysteries, perhaps the most well known is the liquid coursing through our veins – blood. As humans, we need blood running through our systems to survive. Blood is pumped through our hearts, prevents bacterial diseases, and causes clots to stop bleeding from small cuts. The antibodies in our blood protect our bodies and give us sustenance. Not only does blood keep our systems going, it also delivers specific nutrients to each cell. Discovery Health wrote a series of articles detailing why specific blood cells are important to our health. What keeps us alive and well is precisely what fictitious vampires search for in their desire to become “undead.”
