Mathematical Model of Zombie Epidemics Reveals Two Types of Living-Dead Strains 163
KentuckyFC writes "Epidemiologists have long known how to model the way disease spreads through a population using a computer simulation. This generally involves three populations of individuals: those who are susceptible to disease, those who are infected and those who recover, return to the population and are no longer susceptible. Researchers then feed data about the number of infections and so on into the model which can then work out the disease characteristics such as infection rates. And with this information, they can predict the future evolution of the disease. Now researchers have used a similar model to simulate the spread of infection during a zombie epidemic. They've gathered infection data from real zombie movies, put this into the model and used it to predict the disease characteristics. The results show two clear types of zombie infection which differ in what happens to people after they die. In the first, epitomized by Night of the Living Dead, everybody who dies becomes a zombie. In the second, as in Shaun of the Dead, not everyone who dies becomes a zombie--contact with a zombie beforehand is required. This allows the interesting dynamic of escaping zombification by committing suicide. It also shows how close these zombies have come to winning. The research isn't entirely frivolous. The researchers say exactly the same process of model-building, data gathering and simulation works equally well on real diseases such as influenza. So their approach is a useful teaching tool for budding epidemiologists of the future."
Zombie, zombie zombie-eh-eh in your head (Score:4, Interesting)
Article says nothing about the Cranberries.
Modelling epidemics is important. Mass transit and all that just means that the next major flu bug could well screw a hefty percentage of the population.
Zombies were once a semi-real concept, because defining death has been refined only recently. The French word for undertaker is "croque mort", literally the "dead biter" who would bit corpses to make sure they were really dead.
Re:"all press is good press"??? (Score:5, Interesting)
After years in the academic backwater of Little Rock Tech and little to show for it except a few paltry offerings to low-impact journals, Professor Y. realized he was facing the end: his funding pool nearly dried up, he knew he would have to let his post-doc Xian fend for himself - likely he would be deported. The professor loved research, loved the hunt, the lure of bold new ideas, but he just wasn't having much luck lately: Team X at MIT had already beat him to the punch a couple times regarding minor breakthroughs in epidemiology - better staffed, better funded, it was no wonder they had beat him, yet he had come so close . And the worst part? The worst part was that he wold have to start teaching again.
It was with such thoughts that he was ambling down Center Street, eyes cast down and hands sunk deeply in his pockets. He reached a corner and almost walked right into a steady stream of gun-rack laden pickup trucks, one of which had apparently drawn a bead on the absent-minded professor. The driver slammed his brakes just in time and unleashed a semi-intelligible curse regarding questionable inter-sibling liaisons before speeding away in a huff.
Professor Y. suddenly stirred from his reverie and looked up. He had barely registered the indignant driver, but the item he now stared at held his undivided attention. It was a marquee for a feature film: "Brad Pitt. World War Z". Then it hit him, hit him like a thunderclap on an otherwise calm day, and his knees buckled with the enormity of his epiphany. The professor solemnly bowed his head and whispered one word: Zombies.
Re:Still Utterly Pointless (Score:4, Interesting)
The zombie study was itself based upon basic and well-accepted work in epidemiological forecasting. They're just closing the circle.