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New study says zombies will wipe out mankind. Sort of
It appears George Romero was right: Canadian mathematicians have concluded that a zombie outbreak could lead to the destruction of civilization in short order unless dealt with aggressively at the outset, according to a report on the BBC.
The scientific paper is published in a book, Infectious Diseases Modelling Research Progress, the BBC reports:
They say only frequent counter-attacks with increasing force would eradicate the fictional creatures. ...In some respects, a zombie "plague" resembles a lethal rapidly spreading infection. The researchers say the exercise could help scientists model the spread of unfamiliar diseases through human populations. ...
In their study, the researchers from the University of Ottawa and Carleton University (also in Ottawa) posed a question: If there was to be a battle between zombies and the living, who would win?
Professor Robert Smith? (the question mark is part of his surname and not a typographical mistake) and colleagues wrote: "We model a zombie attack using biological assumptions based on popular zombie movies.
"We introduce a basic model for zombie infection and illustrate the outcome with numerical solutions."
The most interesting part of this study, of course, is why would a professor spell his name with a question mark? (To distinguish him from The Cure's lead singer, we're told. Because I'm sure people mix them up all the time.)
Oh, and fans of 28 Days Later? The mathematical study is based on Romero's classic slow-moving zombies to give humankind a fighting chance.
God help us if zombies are able to run.
By Braystreet at 10:55 AM ON 08/18/09
By Marty B. at 11:27 AM ON 08/18/09
So someone added a c.v. line by basically reverse engineering and publishing an academic paper based on Kevan's zombie infection simulator:
http://kevan.org/proce55ing/zombies/
Lame.
By Tantus at 1:08 PM ON 08/18/09
I wonder if it was a goverment funded study?
By Sam at 1:33 PM ON 08/18/09
That's funny! The government can't even do anything about the swine flu, which they've already labeled a "pandemic".
If something truly deadly was ever released, I'm sure the government would split in their private planes to a remote island and try to tell us they have everything under control, while the disease continued to spread and they did nothing to contain it.
By Kongbooster at 1:51 PM ON 08/18/09
I play enough Left4Dead. I'm ready for them... assuming I find automatic shotguns and ammo lying around when they attack.
By funkytrmpt at 2:29 PM ON 08/18/09
In 28 Days Laters, they are not "zombies" per say. They are LIVING humans infected with rage. A small distinction. Oh yeah and they dont actually eat people. They just kill by any means necessary.
By SCI FI Wire at 5:03 PM ON 08/18/09
@funkytrmpt: You're right, of course. To which we say, "Potato, potahto." It's still a zombie movie in the broader sense.
By oddball at 6:10 PM ON 08/18/09
funkytrmpt
Not really, the word zombie no longer defines a single particular subject. As a matter of fact zombie is more of a classification nowadays.
By Bluesman at 11:52 PM ON 08/18/09
You guys need to pick up a copy of "The Zombie Survival Guide" by Max Brooks. The definitive study of how to survive a Zombie attack.
By Aberzombie at 6:56 AM ON 08/19/09
I find all this talk of zombie killing to be rather disconcerting. Give the heart-beat challenged a break!
By Jimbo at 12:29 AM ON 08/20/09
We don't worry about zombies in TX. They'd have to define a hunting season on them and set bag limits so everyone would get a chance to shoot one.
In a similar vein, the movie Signs was a huge hit here--as a comedy.
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Jimbo:
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