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posted by janrinok on Monday March 02 2015, @10:34AM   Printer-friendly
from the we're-doomed-I-tell-ye-dooomed! dept.

Eric Mack reports at Cnet that a team of researchers at Cornell University, inspired by the book "World War Z" by Max Brooks, have used statistical-mechanics to model how an actual zombie outbreak might unfold and determined the best long-term strategy for surviving the walking dead: Head for the hills. Specifically, you should probably get familiar now with the general location of Glacier National Park so that when it all goes down, you can start heading in that direction. The project started with differential equations to model a fully connected population, then moved on to lattice-based models, and ended with a full US-scale simulation of an outbreak across the continental US. "At their heart, the simulations are akin to modelling chemical reactions taking place between different elements and, in this case, we have four states a person can be in--human," says Alex Alemi, "infected, zombie, or dead zombie--with approximately 300 million people."

Alemi believes cities would succumb to the zombie scourge quickly, but the infection rate would slow down significantly in more sparsely populated areas and could take months to reach places like the Northern Rockies and Glacier National Park. "Given the dynamics of the disease, 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," Alemi says. Once you hit Montana and Idaho, you might as well keep heading farther north into the Canadian Rockies and all the way up to Alaska where data analysis shows you're most likely to survive the zombie apocalypse. The state with the lowest survival rate? - New Jersey. Unfortunately a full scale simulation of an outbreak in the United States shows that for `realistic' parameters, we are largely doomed.

 
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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by VLM on Monday March 02 2015, @01:08PM

    by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Monday March 02 2015, @01:08PM (#151852)

    Although, how would you survive once you got there?

    Zombie discussions are just thinly veiled "acceptable for polite company" way to discuss periodic influenza outbreaks and civil unrest, so the idea is take enough stuff to last awhile and come home after things settle down a bit, or at least stay away as long as possible.

    If the next flu outbreak lasts 5 months, and you spend one month camping in a national park or whatever, even though you're still at risk 4 of 5 months, you just dropped your odds of death by 20%.

    Or, if something finally interferes with bread and circuses and rioting starts, those things usually burn out one way or another relatively soon, so if you needed to be a refugee, are the odds of getting shot in the street by a cop higher in NJ, or Glacier?

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  • (Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Monday March 02 2015, @02:16PM

    by Ethanol-fueled (2792) on Monday March 02 2015, @02:16PM (#151868) Homepage

    That is why everybody should have a gun during the zombie apocalypse.

    The whiny anti-gunners will be the first to be eaten alive because they are left with no way to defend themselves.

    • (Score: 2) by Thexalon on Monday March 02 2015, @02:50PM

      by Thexalon (636) on Monday March 02 2015, @02:50PM (#151885)

      Guns aren't that useful in a zombie apocalypse, because most versions of zombies aren't stopped by merely getting shot. Now, retreating into a concrete bomb shelter with a nice steel-reinforced door, on the other hand, would probably be a very smart move, at least until supplies ran out.

      --
      The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
      • (Score: 3, Insightful) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Monday March 02 2015, @04:06PM

        by GreatAuntAnesthesia (3275) on Monday March 02 2015, @04:06PM (#151922) Journal

        Guns are very useful in most zombie scenarios, as long as you have ammo for them, and you can regularly score headshots. If I was in a zombie scenario, I'd be very happy to own a gun or two. However I'd still want keep at least one Blunt Instrument (TM) handy at all times, and probably a decent sharp one too. Your best friend, though, in any zombie scenario, is a solid building/ compound with high walls / fences and strong doors. While hiding out in a fortified position is a pretty shitty strategy against a canny human enemy, it's not really a bad one against an 'army' of shambling, dimwitted rotting corpses that couldn't outfox (and can barely outrun) a snail. Of course, a lot depends on whether you're talking fast zombies or slow zombies, physics-defying undead zombies or technically-still-living-people-but-somehow-turned into-bloodthirsty-monsters zombies, but in almost all zombie scenarios they aren't actually all that dangerous, once the initial shock and surprise of the epidemic is over and survivors have armed themselves and got organised. The one thing many Z scenarios do get right is that your biggest threat is likely to be not the zombies themselves, but other survivors looking to rob / rape / murder you. Which is another good reason to have guns.

  • (Score: 2) by aristarchus on Tuesday March 03 2015, @09:15AM

    by aristarchus (2645) on Tuesday March 03 2015, @09:15AM (#152403) Journal

    No, the influenza screen is just PR to hide the possible truth!! And odds of death? Glacier Park? Do you know who lives next door to Glacier Park? They have a rep. And do you know what lives in Glacier Park? Griz don't care about no zombies! Hmmm, zombies, influenza, or a Grizzly; I'll have to think on this one for a while.

    • (Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday March 03 2015, @12:46PM

      by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday March 03 2015, @12:46PM (#152458)

      Zombie grizzlies are a worrisome concept.

      As for the next door neighbors, if its a civil unrest problem, visiting the land of maple syrup guzzling hockey fans starts sounding appealing.