"We are largely doomed"
March 6, 2015 5:49 PM Subscribe
"Thanks to Cornell University researchers, the world can now predict how fast a zombie outbreak would spread from a single undead person.
Using data from the 2010 U.S. census and the SIR model, an epidemiological tool that can project the progress of actual infectious diseases, the scientists created "large-scale exact stochastic dynamical simulation" of a such an outbreak. Their findings were to be presented Thursday to the august American Physical Society.
Here's the zombie modeling map to play out all your Walking Dead scenarios.
Here's the zombie modeling map to play out all your Walking Dead scenarios.
I don't buy this. When it comes to rooting out and exterminating The Other, humans are second to none. The precipitous collapse of civilization and human institutions has always struck me as the least realistic part of zombie fiction. The maps are cool though.
Damn it. I'm gonna have to write my own zombie stories.
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 6:07 PM on March 6, 2015 [1 favorite]
Damn it. I'm gonna have to write my own zombie stories.
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 6:07 PM on March 6, 2015 [1 favorite]
Liars. They just played through the Necroa Virus part of Pandemic/Plague, Inc.
posted by merelyglib at 6:20 PM on March 6, 2015
posted by merelyglib at 6:20 PM on March 6, 2015
Ah, but how long does it take for the cliche zombie meme to the infect the whole world?
posted by Apocryphon at 6:25 PM on March 6, 2015 [4 favorites]
posted by Apocryphon at 6:25 PM on March 6, 2015 [4 favorites]
We wiped out Neanderthals. We'll do just fine against Homo sapiens mortensis
posted by Renoroc at 6:41 PM on March 6, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by Renoroc at 6:41 PM on March 6, 2015 [2 favorites]
I favor the Shaun of the Dead approach: there'd be a few messy days (or possibly weeks or months), but we'd adapt. As a species, it's what we do.
posted by Pope Guilty at 6:50 PM on March 6, 2015
posted by Pope Guilty at 6:50 PM on March 6, 2015
Ben: "There are stories being told, Bob."
Robert: "By people who are out of their minds with fear."
Ben: "Maybe. But there are too many to be just coincidental. Stories about people who have died and have come back."
Robert: They're stories, Ben, stories.
-'The Last Man On Earth', 1964.
posted by clavdivs at 7:01 PM on March 6, 2015
Robert: "By people who are out of their minds with fear."
Ben: "Maybe. But there are too many to be just coincidental. Stories about people who have died and have come back."
Robert: They're stories, Ben, stories.
-'The Last Man On Earth', 1964.
posted by clavdivs at 7:01 PM on March 6, 2015
Looking at this, it takes five days for a classic Pittsburgh-centered zombie horde to even reach Cleveland. What're we so afraid of?
posted by The Bridge on the River Kai Ryssdal at 7:05 PM on March 6, 2015
posted by The Bridge on the River Kai Ryssdal at 7:05 PM on March 6, 2015
gingerbeer: "Here's the zombie modeling map to play out all your Walking Dead scenarios."
You buried the lede! ...but it just emerged right out of the ground again. Cool!
posted by Rhaomi at 7:05 PM on March 6, 2015 [8 favorites]
You buried the lede! ...but it just emerged right out of the ground again. Cool!
posted by Rhaomi at 7:05 PM on March 6, 2015 [8 favorites]
We wiped out Neanderthals. We'll do just fine against Homo sapiens mortensis
There have been goths among us since the eighties. Your dentist was one.
posted by srboisvert at 7:16 PM on March 6, 2015 [2 favorites]
There have been goths among us since the eighties. Your dentist was one.
posted by srboisvert at 7:16 PM on March 6, 2015 [2 favorites]
Meh. I'm in Atlanta. I'm good.
posted by pearlybob at 7:26 PM on March 6, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by pearlybob at 7:26 PM on March 6, 2015 [1 favorite]
SIR is definitely not the right model for zombies. The infected have obvious symptoms and adaptive human behavior is way too significant.
posted by yeolcoatl at 8:02 PM on March 6, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by yeolcoatl at 8:02 PM on March 6, 2015 [3 favorites]
how long does it take for the cliche zombie meme to the infect the whole world? Does? or DID?
posted by oneswellfoop at 8:06 PM on March 6, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by oneswellfoop at 8:06 PM on March 6, 2015 [1 favorite]
Plus, in some zombie scenarios, all the humans are already infected and they turn into zombies despite cause of death or location of death.
So it wouldn't matter all that much how far you live from large cities. Your one neighbor dies for any old reason and you'll have a zombie knocking on your door.
There's no waiting for the herd to walk all that way.
posted by dogwalker at 8:06 PM on March 6, 2015
So it wouldn't matter all that much how far you live from large cities. Your one neighbor dies for any old reason and you'll have a zombie knocking on your door.
There's no waiting for the herd to walk all that way.
posted by dogwalker at 8:06 PM on March 6, 2015
From my modeling, I can confirm that what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, even zombies.
posted by ursus_comiter at 8:57 PM on March 6, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by ursus_comiter at 8:57 PM on March 6, 2015 [2 favorites]
This model is also worthless without accounting for crows, vultures and other carrion eaters.
posted by ursus_comiter at 8:57 PM on March 6, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by ursus_comiter at 8:57 PM on March 6, 2015 [1 favorite]
Paging Mira Grant again!
posted by jenfullmoon at 10:23 PM on March 6, 2015
posted by jenfullmoon at 10:23 PM on March 6, 2015
Yeah, I don't think SIR is right for zombies either, and also it's a pretty fucking easy model to code up so I really don't see this as a significant college-level thing unless the article's missing something. I was in a group of high schoolers about a decade ago that made a modified SIR model with various age-based cohorts/adjusted mortality rates/transmission rate changes based on different levels of quarantine and stuff. It's pretty fun to play with, and I'd be interested to see what equations and stuff they used, but it's a pretty basic model.
posted by NoraReed at 11:05 PM on March 6, 2015
posted by NoraReed at 11:05 PM on March 6, 2015
Are the infected too stupid to drink water? If so, just wait 3 days.
posted by benzenedream at 11:13 PM on March 6, 2015
posted by benzenedream at 11:13 PM on March 6, 2015
Poor flat bastard.
posted by ostranenie at 3:16 AM on March 7, 2015
posted by ostranenie at 3:16 AM on March 7, 2015
This was my senior honors thesis, though I didn't have quite the visualization budget.
posted by PMdixon at 7:38 AM on March 7, 2015
posted by PMdixon at 7:38 AM on March 7, 2015
Interestingly it looks like if NYC gets hit by zombies, the rest of the US is pretty well off - it takes so long for the zombies to get through everyone in the city that it's days before it spreads elsewhere - plenty of time for a tactical nuke.
posted by corb at 9:37 AM on March 7, 2015
posted by corb at 9:37 AM on March 7, 2015
Zombies are the least-convincing of all monsters. They are walking and stupid carrion buffets in a world full of scavenging animals, blowflies, and rapacious bacteria. In herds, they'd be swarmed by coyotes and vultures until there was nothing left of them.
Which is why I assume their popularity is really about fear of pandemics, or simply of a karmic smackdown for humanity's sins. We don't usually get eaten by anything else anymore, so we imagine a curse that could make us eat ourselves.
posted by emjaybee at 10:05 AM on March 7, 2015
Which is why I assume their popularity is really about fear of pandemics, or simply of a karmic smackdown for humanity's sins. We don't usually get eaten by anything else anymore, so we imagine a curse that could make us eat ourselves.
posted by emjaybee at 10:05 AM on March 7, 2015
I strongly advise against the use of nuclear weapons, a fuel-air bomb or two will do.
posted by clavdivs at 10:09 AM on March 7, 2015
posted by clavdivs at 10:09 AM on March 7, 2015
Zombie movies / TV shows aren't based upon a human fear of pandemic or masochistic desire to see hubris brought low. They are based upon the deep hunger for narrative in which pre-existing advantages are zero'd out and people live or die based upon their personal strength of character / competence / etc.
They aren't any more untrue to human nature than the typical war movie. If Saving Private Ryan had wanted to depict how we really whipped the nazis, it would have been set in comfortable offices in Washington DC and depicted five years' planning for the production of ships and airplanes and optimizing transport time tables and the economic balance between wartime bond issuances and tax increases and between rationing and price controls to optimize non-combatant consumption. The conflict would have been intellectual (Keynsian vs Neo Classicist) and social (dollar-a-year blue bloods vs immigrant and jewish academics). But Tom Hanks with a gun in his hand make us feel better about ourselves ... so there you go.
posted by MattD at 11:18 AM on March 7, 2015 [1 favorite]
They aren't any more untrue to human nature than the typical war movie. If Saving Private Ryan had wanted to depict how we really whipped the nazis, it would have been set in comfortable offices in Washington DC and depicted five years' planning for the production of ships and airplanes and optimizing transport time tables and the economic balance between wartime bond issuances and tax increases and between rationing and price controls to optimize non-combatant consumption. The conflict would have been intellectual (Keynsian vs Neo Classicist) and social (dollar-a-year blue bloods vs immigrant and jewish academics). But Tom Hanks with a gun in his hand make us feel better about ourselves ... so there you go.
posted by MattD at 11:18 AM on March 7, 2015 [1 favorite]
That is interesting.
"On the Franco-Austrian Frontier during World War I, an Oriental priest, chaplain of a French colonial regiment, is condemned to life imprisonment because he possesses the power to turn men into zombies."
posted by clavdivs at 1:00 PM on March 7, 2015
"On the Franco-Austrian Frontier during World War I, an Oriental priest, chaplain of a French colonial regiment, is condemned to life imprisonment because he possesses the power to turn men into zombies."
posted by clavdivs at 1:00 PM on March 7, 2015
Apparently zombies are incapable of crossing the Chesapeake Bay bridge. Good to know.
posted by Dr.Enormous at 2:52 PM on March 7, 2015
posted by Dr.Enormous at 2:52 PM on March 7, 2015
Zombies are the least-convincing of all monsters. They are walking and stupid carrion buffets in a world full of scavenging animals, blowflies, and rapacious bacteria. In herds, they'd be swarmed by coyotes and vultures until there was nothing left of them.
World War Z (the book, not the lame Brad Pitt movie) explained this away by claiming that most living creatures, including bacteria, would die if they consumed zombified flesh. It also explained why they would rot very slowly.
I'm still bitter that they made a crappy movie that had little to nothing to do with the book aside from name, and not a good miniseries on HBO or Netflix or something.
posted by Fleebnork at 3:53 PM on March 7, 2015 [4 favorites]
World War Z (the book, not the lame Brad Pitt movie) explained this away by claiming that most living creatures, including bacteria, would die if they consumed zombified flesh. It also explained why they would rot very slowly.
I'm still bitter that they made a crappy movie that had little to nothing to do with the book aside from name, and not a good miniseries on HBO or Netflix or something.
posted by Fleebnork at 3:53 PM on March 7, 2015 [4 favorites]
I sent this to a friend of mine, who's heavily into massive simulation stuff. His only comment was "It's important that disease outbreak models work for zombie outbreaks, if not, people would think research money was squandered on unimportant trifles like measles and polio."
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 12:07 AM on March 8, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 12:07 AM on March 8, 2015 [3 favorites]
World War Z (the book, not the lame Brad Pitt movie) explained this away
Yeah, the problem I have with these models in general is that they make a lot of unstated assumptions - that the zombies are basically immortal unless killed, for example.
posted by Chrysostom at 9:33 AM on March 10, 2015
Yeah, the problem I have with these models in general is that they make a lot of unstated assumptions - that the zombies are basically immortal unless killed, for example.
posted by Chrysostom at 9:33 AM on March 10, 2015
Yeah, it's not uncommon for zombie flesh to be unpalatable and for animals to freak out around them.
posted by Pope Guilty at 9:37 AM on March 10, 2015
posted by Pope Guilty at 9:37 AM on March 10, 2015
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posted by gingerbeer at 5:54 PM on March 6, 2015