'Zombie apocalypse' trend eats through the Web

The Internet has turned Miami's infamously horrific face-eating attack and other incidents into a "zombie apocalypse," a search term now generating serious traffic on Google and social media sites like Twitter and Facebook.

A Miami man, Rudy Eugene, made national headlines over Memorial Day weekend after gnawing on the face of a 65-year-old homeless man, Ronald Poppo, in a gruesome attack that lasted nearly 18 minutes, according to the Miami Herald building’s security footage.

The stomach-turning incident has been grouped with a series of other cannibal-like attacks in recent weeks--many of which happen to be in Florida--in what some are calling signs of a "zombie apocalypse."

Popularized by horror films like “Night of the Living Dead” and “28 Days Later,” a “zombie apocalypse” refers to civilizational collapse caused by widespread zombie infestation.

“Zombie apocalypse,” along with rumors that “bath salts” turned Eugene into a zombie, have exploded as search trends on Google, as conspiracy theorists, bloggers and humorists are lumping unnerving and cannibalistic incidents together as evidence for a coming "end of days."

A Tumblr blog called IHopeRickSantorum garnered more than 26,000 comments for compiling a list of “zombie” incidents that have occurred since May 16.

In one news story, Swedish police reported Thursday that a researcher had cut his wife’s lips off and ate them when he suspected she had been unfaithful.

In another, a New Jersey man repeatedly stabbed himself and began throwing his intestines and skin at police officers who had entered his home.

The Baltimore Sun reported Thursday that a 21-year-old Morgan State University student has been charged with eating the heart and brain of a man who has been missing for a week.

In what io9.com called "the most ominous real-life tweet you'll ever read," The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Monday tweeted this campus-wide alert: