Science & Technology

Researchers develop zombie escape plan

By T.K. Randall
February 28, 2015 ·  27 comments

Heading out of the major cities would be a good first step. Image Credit: CC BY 2.0 Nicholas A. Tonelli The threat of a deadly zombie virus is a concept that has been featured in countless books and movies over the last few decades, but in the unlikely event that such a thing were to ever happen in the real world what would be the best way to ensure your survival ?

This is the question that a team of Cornell researchers have been attempting to tackle recently as part of a statistical mechanics exercise with the premise of a fictional zombie outbreak being used as an analogue for a real-world viral pandemic.

The team based their calculations on the assumption that new zombies would be created when existing zombies bite uninfected people, quickly spreading the disease among the population."If there is a zombie outbreak, it is usually assumed to affect all areas at the same time, and some months after the outbreak you're left with small pockets of survivors," said graduate student Alex Alemi. "But in our attempt to model zombies somewhat realistically, it doesn't seem like this is how it would actually go down."

The team found that while large cities would likely fall very quickly, rural areas would remain relatively untouched for quite some time after the outbreak due to their lower populations.

"Once the zombies invade more sparsely populated areas, the whole outbreak slows down - there are fewer humans to bite, so you start creating zombies at a slower rate," said Alemi.

Those looking to survive the longest therefore would be best served heading towards as remote a region as possible to minimize their chances of being bitten.

Source: Phys.org | Comments (27)

Tags: Zombie, Apocalypse