Submission + - Science ponders zombie attack
VJ42 writes: If zombies actually existed, an attack by them would lead to the collapse of civilisation unless dealt with quickly and aggressively.
That is the conclusion of a mathematical exercise carried out by researchers in Canada.
But there is a serious side to the work. In some respects, a zombie "plague" resembles a lethal rapidly-spreading infection.
In their study, the researchers from the University of Ottawa and Carleton University posed a question: If there was to be a battle between zombies and the living, who would win?
The study has been welcomed by one of the world's leading disease specialists, Professor Neil Ferguson, who is one of the UK government's chief advisors on controlling the spread of swine flu. However he thinks that some of the assumptions made in the paper might be unduly alarmist. "My understanding of zombie biology is that if you manage to decapitate a zombie then it's dead forever. So perhaps they are being a little over-pessimistic when they conclude that zombies might take over a city in three or four days," he said.
But there is a serious side to the work. In some respects, a zombie "plague" resembles a lethal rapidly-spreading infection.
In their study, the researchers from the University of Ottawa and Carleton University posed a question: If there was to be a battle between zombies and the living, who would win?
The study has been welcomed by one of the world's leading disease specialists, Professor Neil Ferguson, who is one of the UK government's chief advisors on controlling the spread of swine flu. However he thinks that some of the assumptions made in the paper might be unduly alarmist. "My understanding of zombie biology is that if you manage to decapitate a zombie then it's dead forever. So perhaps they are being a little over-pessimistic when they conclude that zombies might take over a city in three or four days," he said.
