Could YOU survive a zombie apocalypse? Uni eggheads say you'd last just 100 days Physics students at the UK's University of Leicester have concluded that a "real-life zombie outbreak" would all but eliminate humanity in just 100 days. Ignoring more plausible threats like flu pandemic, Pumpkin Spice Latte poisoning, or tweet-triggered nuclear annihilation, Leicester students CT Davies, KJ Cheshire, R …
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My thoughts too.
I'm not a biologist (or fan of zombie fiction). But it seems to me that zombies can only walk and there are a large number of inhabited islands on the planet.
Just so long as someone remembers to close the channel tunnel, I don't think we'd be troubled. Though having to become self-sufficient might be a bit of a shock to some.
"Just so long as someone remembers to close the channel tunnel, I don't think we'd be troubled."
C'mon, by the time the congenital zombies running this place have worked that one out there'll be milions of the buggers through it and claiming asylum and /or a pound of flesh.
Nearest I can find to a zombie icon >>
But it seems to me that zombies can only walk and there are a large number of inhabited islands on the planet.
But there is also a large amount of people currently in the air and the ocean, planes and boats. One person on a large ship with lots of people could infect quite a lot before people realise "zombies!" and take action, your first thought when you see someone staggering down the road in a strange way is "pub o'clock time, sweet" not "KILL THE BUGGER!" - unless you're in the less friendly areas of Newquay.
Best bet for survival is an island fortress where you can plant veg, fish freely and bring in livestock but once the human population reaches a small amount (is it 40 odd k?) the chance of survival into the future is zero because of eventual interbreeding due to a lack of people to impregnate.
>I'm not a biologist (or fan of zombie fiction). But it seems to me that zombies can only walk and there are a large number of inhabited islands on the planet.
Just so long as someone remembers to close the channel tunnel, I don't think we'd be troubled. Though having to become self-sufficient might be a bit of a shock to some.<
Ah, but it seems likely that zombies don't breath. Which means they could potentially walk across the seabed in order to get to other islands, etc. Maybe also infecting fish; you could be attacked by a zombie cod while fishing for food...
1. RTFA.
2. University of Leicester.
4. Possibly Esther from the University of Leicester?
5. Leicester's probably been infected for yonks already, like Westminster.
6. Have you tried getting any sense out of a zombie biologist?
7. Have you tried getting any sense out of a Westminster Weasel? (Congress Critter to left pondians.)
Yup, we're DOOMED, just taking longer than the mathematical models suggest. Perhaps the komplicated mafematical modelses (excel spreadsheet?) should include variables for zombie diet preferences like ....
Esp if you assume the zombies need BRRAAAAAINS to survive and you drag in predator/prey population cycles.
On the other hand, that's quite the journalistic stir they are causing with their "simple models", maybe not so dumb after all from a networking/career POV. And imagine the pickup lines!!!
Cynical, moi?
You don't even need islands, just sparsely populated areas. If you live in an area with a couple dozen people per spare mile, aka half the United States, where are the zombies going to come from? Maybe they will wander by eventually, but the people living there will have figured out something is up by the fact that TV, internet, cell phones and electricity go away, though probably they will have seen or heard something about the outbreak before that. Those people are more likely to own guns, but even if they don't they can pretty easily kill or keep at bay a single zombie.
I've always wondered where all the zombies in the woods in Walking Dead come from. Did they walk from Atlanta?
> The nearest Trump rally.
I expected this kind of "response".
More and more people seem to be infected by Trump Derangement Syndrome, which is worse than Bush Derangement Syndrome or Obama Rainbow Pony Syndrome. Hopefully this will burn itself out or will have to activate the FEMA trailers.
Is it worse than whatever the conservatives had over Obama, claiming he's a Muslim, claiming he's not born in the US, claiming the country wouldn't exist in four years if he was elected. Its been eight, and we're still here. And economic growth has been starting to pick up this year, just in time for Trump to take credit for it before he even takes office (but still somehow blame Obama if a recession hits in a few years)
More and more people seem to be infected by Trump Derangement Syndrome, which is worse than Bush Derangement Syndrome or Obama Rainbow Pony Syndrome. Hopefully this will burn itself out or will have to activate the FEMA trailers.
I wouldn't count on it dying out. Both the previous two Syndromes are still running amok... and it seems that the same people are behind them. Hell.. we also still have the Clinton Is Perfect Syndrome* types running around.
*Take your pick on which Clinton is involved.. there's overlap.
Bingo. If every single person in my north GA mountain county (USA, and close to the location where TWD is filmed) turned zombie, I have enough ammunition and skill to kill each and every one... as long as they are slow moving as in "The Walking Dead). Now, if the virus is like "48 hours", where the zombies are extremly fast moving and violent... all bets are off.
" ...non-trivial number of guns in the US (~300 million)"
Of course you should also factor in the number of shootings of uninfected humans by the gun-toting, moron classes and the likelihood that President-for-life Trump would hit the nuke button faster than you can say "Kiss me Vladimir"
Possibly the biggest factor you need to consider is that people are essentially selfish arseholes. In a major city (LA for example) the first thing you are going to run out of is fresh water, especially in a city where it has not rained for over 3 years. People are not going to stand around simply waiting for the Marines to drop water bottles: they are going to try and take your supplies, and they will probably have more bullets than brains (zombie pun intended) when it comes to doing this.
My tuppence worth: humanity will do a pretty good job of wiping itself out faster than any shuffling zombie can. To misquote Ripley in Aliens, "You don't see zombies f*cking each other over for a goddamn percentage"
Well, if it's only a "Game of Life" type maths model, then obviously biology was never even a consideration, which makes sense as zombies are a complete work of fiction, and therefore any "research" on the subject must simply be a hypothetical model for something else, like maths.
Although there are in fact two very real phenomena of "zombies", neither of which has anything to do with the supernatural. One is based on the Voodoo practice of poisoning people then bringing them "back from the dead", when in fact they were never really dead to begin with, for the purpose of enslaving them. The other is a strange phenomenon where certain insects become infected with parasitic organisms that consume them from the inside, leaving a dead or dying shell that is then moved by the invading organisms in such a way that it appears to still be alive and healthy.
The modern obsession with fictional zombies is mostly just an allegory for xenophobia, such as McCarthyism or Islamophobia. The same is true of all fictional monsters, they're really just a paranoid manifestation of our irrational fears.
A more useful and indeed necessary study would be to consider our survival prospects in more tangible issues, such as the rapidly accelerating problem of inequality, since people are far more likely to die from poverty than from a zombie apocalypse.
> The modern obsession with fictional zombies is mostly just an allegory
Yeah, this reminds me of this article from 2012: "Obsessed With the Undead". Time flies...
On Halloween, an army of the undead will be unleashed upon Mission Bay off the coast of San Diego. U.S. soldiers, Marines, special forces, police and emergency responders will face the challenge of a lifetime as the flesh-eating scourge threatens to devour their ranks — literally.
Of course it’s not real. This is a five-day “counterterrorism summit,” but we’ll just refer to it as yet another — albeit extremely creative — government boondoggle. Starting this week, more than 1,000 people participating on the taxpayers’ dime will get to break away for five days from the daily grind and the Xbox 360 to play Resident Evil zombie hunter on a 44-acre reserve (luxury resort) blown out with “immersive Hollywood sets” that feature everything from authentic looking villages to “pirate havens” and hospitals soon to be filled with ill-fated good guys suffering from ersatz bite wounds.
Move over, George Romero. No one can recreate the over-the-top zombie apocalypse like a private security firm (in this case, Halo Corporation, a beltway bandit operation formed by ex-special operations and intelligence agents) flush with government contracts and corporate sponsorships, and access to the best weaponry, surveillance gear and other technological wizardry the post-9/11 paranoid domestic security state can buy.
Why Zombies?
World War Z is an implicit condemnation of the post-9/11 Bush Administration, but easily a metaphor, too, for the self-destructive politics pulling at the levers of American power today.
Political hubris in Brooks’ “fictional” Washington so blinds the leadership at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue that when honesty and clarity are needed the most, the White House stonewalls, stalls and sacrifices time and lives before finally setting a straight course for survival. For millions in World War Z, it is too late.
Though there are as many disquisitions on the subject as there are movies, books and television series, it’s no stretch to suggest that this mistrust of government ultimately fuels our overall fascination for the undead. Sadly, we could imagine a government that causes and covers up toxic spills, dangerous pandemics or even zombie outbreaks. After a decade of real war, our sense of security and control has eroded so sharply and in so many ways we hardly believe anything the government says, ever.
They're undergraduates. What do you expect?
The whole thing is basically an exercise in demonstrating that they know how to plug numbers into an equation (which was given to them by a lecturer), crank a handle and get an answer. That's all it is.
There's no claim that any of the numbers are even remotely plausible, let alone realistic, and they're not being graded on that. Which is just as well.
It's not simply the number of guns, but also how many have enough ammo. Plus, the electricity is going to go out at some point. Also, fast or slow zombies?
The "study" assumes that the transmission is faster than the black death, and the black death was transmitted by (flea) bite, bodily fluids, and airborne droplets, i.e., sneezes. Once the zombie plague reaches a threshold of being noticed, everybody with any kind of sneezy illness will be quarantined.
If the electricity goes out, then the U.S. gov't has estimated that 90% of the population will not survive one year. That's just without electricity. So you betcha the power plants will be cordoned off.
I would guess that the main problem would not be from the zombie plague itself, but from stupid people panicking and messing everything up. Even with Ebola, the human race would survive that handily, even if there was no containment or vaccine for it. Ebola is only about 50% fatal. Rabies is usually fatal, but there have been survivors. A contagious, airborne rabies is more likely than zombies.
Power plants, smower plants. The people who will survive the ZA are going to be the ones who realize that a zombie is a rich source of kinetic energy which must be harvested safely. Like in a special cage not unlike a human-sized hamster wheel with appropriate power harvesting magneto/dynamo equipment attached. Just add a zombie, close the cage door, and enjoy days upon days of free electricity from your very own Zombie Electric Generator. Not as much amperage as a gas generator, but needs no fuel. Use it to run a mini-fridge to keep your Cornettos cool as ice, baby!
If you've not thought of this, you are already doomed. The last of us will cook and eat you with respect, in that case.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Flavours_Cornetto_trilogy
Ammunition is unlikely to be a major constraint.
Those people without guns will be in a dire situation... but they won't need or consume ammunition.
The average sport shooter will have hundreds to (more likely) thousands of rounds, as they are far less expensive when bought in lots of 1,000 or more for each caliber, while the average serious hunter may well have hundreds of rounds.
Preppers will have thousands to tens of thousands of rounds, stockpiled by the case (typically 1,000 to 2280 rounds each).
This is easily enough to clear your local sporting goods store or gun club of ex-employees, in order to access their storeroom. Larger quantities are likely available at major police stations and military bases, unless they have been used to eradicate zombies, which cuts down on both ammunition and zombies.
Those with good research skills can hunt down distributors' warehouses.
I do agree that the collapse of production and distribution (something electricity loss is a cause/proxy for) would kill a lot of people until the population density dropped to the level supportable by hunting/subsistence farming.\
The study, however, seems to assume that people have no tactical sense, nor adequate shooting skills. Those people will die first, the rest will be a lot more effective.
Note from the above... ammunition is heavy. Most sport shooters and preppers would require a vehicle to relocate their stockpile... even light ammuntion, such as 5.56 Nato, would max your load out with no more than a couple of thousand rounds, and you wouldn't like the weight. More realistically, you can only carry several hundred rounds. Note to zombie apocalypse participants... avoid shotguns, the ammo is way heavy and too bulky. The lightest effective rounds are the best, where effective depends on skill as well as raw power.
AFAIK it's higher and you will only survive if you are under medical supervision anyway.
Well, the data comes from WHO. Yes, I do agree, the hospital wards will fill rather quickly.
As far as a fast-spreading disease goes, dengue is tops right now. And that's still controllable.
> Also, fast or slow zombies?
This might be the most important point, alongside how smart/stupid they are, 'smart' just meaning they don't all walk into the moat and can work out how to get over a wall or have some rudimentary comprehension of opening a door by not shambling into it at the wrong angle.
Slow+Stupid, we win ;
Slow+Smart, We stand a chance ;
Fast+Stupid, we stand a chance if we don't dawdle ;
Fast+Smart, find a fortress and don't assume a ladder makes you safe.
The 'preppers' will be in with the best chance but not because of the guns and ammo - they will survive if they have high fortified walls but more critically a sufficient supply of clean water to wash down all those beans, and proper sanitation because you soon run out of places to dig those pits.
Actually the default 'best chance' starts with being away from populated areas.
I don't think that guns and ammo would be much use against a Zombie attack - personally I plan to rely on my cricket bat and LP record collection. I'd also take down the House Alarm company sign from the front yard (no electricity so it's non-functional) and stick the DVD cover from Shaun of the Dead over it.
That should see them off.
Quite. a cricket bat and a stiff upper lip should be all a chap requires. Incidentally Bristol City Council once commissioned a study for civil defence in the event of Zombie Apocalypse:
http://www.bristolpost.co.uk/bristol-city-council-s-secret-plan-case-zombie/story-27470602-detail/story.html
The sort of people who would only last 100 days are the sort of people who phone helpdesks to say the computers aren't turned on.
Personally, living in Britain I'd take:-
1) Camping equipment, tent, gas cooker + hexi burners etc
2) A supply of canned goods
3) an angle grinder
4) length of rope, bucket, shovel and water purifying tablets.
To the nearest fortifiable keep, Martello tower or thousand year old norman church with a church tower fortifiable to let the local norman priest survive against his flock trying to do him in.
The camping equipment and supply of canned goods is to ensure a food supply of warm food for a few weeks. The rest is to blow through the iron bars stopping people falling down the well that's inevitably in the basement/dungeon of this sort of place - at which point the rest is obvious. (shovel in case there's a lot of coins and dirt at the bottom)
And that's food and water for at least a few weeks while everybody else kills each other off. Given more time I might also include a large number of cans of compressed air etc which you could stick in the tent and have open at a low level to provide a primitive NBC overpressure system, where because air is flowing out of the tent it can't flow in, reducing your chances of catching the plague in case it's airborne. And "nice to have" things such as a supply of paving slabs to drop from the tower against zombies trying to imitate a battering ram on the door.
and speaking of electricity, who is going to man the nuclear reactors? There are several in the state where "The Walking Dead" takes place.. one near Cartersville GA, one at Ga Tech (is that one still active?), one or several at the Savannah River Plant (military), two in south GA, and two more expected to come online in the near future, and one mothballed in the Dawson Forest, in Dawson county.
Don't be so quick to dismiss the topic - Canadian academic Robert J. Smith? (yes, the question mark is deliberate) has modeled zombies and Bieber Fever as well as his more serious work on mathematical epidemiology:
http://mysite.science.uottawa.ca/rsmith43/
Mathematicians care about the abstract model, not pesky little application details. And when the zombie apocalypse strikes, you'll be glad their work got funded.
2" of snow forecast... People stock-up huge quantities of supplies. Then replenishment of stretched supplies is patchy. Then the scares worsen everything and it's a vicious circle. If the Internet is down (solar storms are not rare) then we're the first generation that will die of its dependence on the Internet to get spare parts to repair the Internet. Of course there are good sides -- people will have to talk to each other instead of being glued to FB etc.
-- people will have to talk to each other instead of being glued to FB etc.
Only if they remember how to do that. With texting, FB, etc.... not much happens in the way of real face to face conversation among certain groups of people. I am continually amazed by the number of people that if I call, they'll say "text me".
Ahh, you seem to be paraphrasing one of the great religious thinkers:
"I wish I loved the Human Race,
I wish I loved its stupid face.
And when I was introduced to one,
I wish I thought what jolly fun."
Old Testament maybe? Doesn't sound like New.
It seems to me that the rate would depend on what the infection looked like. If they're like the zombies "as seen on TV" it seems rather likely that fighting back would be vigorous but if it's anything like more common viral outbreaks one can be contagious for a bit of time before the onset of symptoms. Then there's the whole zoonosis/anthroponosis angle of what your zombie parrot says?
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