Millions of viewers turn on their TV's every Sunday to watch, observed the scene and what will happen on the next episode of The Walking Dead. But, could humankind survive the zombie Armageddon? Well, scholars at the University of Leicester have studied the "zombie epidemic" and published a new study in the "Journal of Physics Special Topics".
Per the study, researchers from the Department of Physics and Astronomy exposed that by the 100th day the surviving residents would only be around 100 to 200 people during the apocalypse.
How did researchers discover or concluded this? Well, C.T. Davis and his team of researchers explored the spread of a hypothetical zombie virus after it has infected one person by using the SIR model - an epidemiological model that computes and analyzes the theoretical number of people who will become infected with an infectious disease.
It is vital to some point that this study had many conventions. For example, researchers explained that they presumed the hypothetical zombie virus would turn each person into the undead with a 90% chance. In addition, they did not consider natural births and deaths. Also, researchers claimed that each soul less corpse will be able to find a new person to contaminate each day. Nor, did the researchers assume the option that humans would be able to kill zombies. Thus, the final number of 100 to 200 individuals at the end of the day may be very low.
Could a zombie apocalypse really happen?
In the study printed, Hungry and angry: could we survive a zombie apocalypse? published in the journal "The Lancet Neurology" neurologists observed pop cultural undead and linked with different parts of the brain. Researchers explained that some of the prime drives such as hunger and rage could be ascribed to a dysfunction within the orbitofrontal cortex. Or, an overactive amygdala, hypothalamus, and thalamus and a broken hormonal system.
And while a "zombie virus" has never been revealed. In New York City, researchers recently found synthetic marijuana to be the cause to the "zombie outbreak". Moreover, 30 people were hospitalized after smoking store bought synthetic cannabinoids.
The study, however, acknowledges that several other crucial factors such as birth and death rates were not carefully measured for the sake of simplicity.
"Natural birth and death rates have been neglected since the epidemic takes place over 100 days, so the natural births and deaths are negligible compared to the impact of the zombie virus over the short time frame," the researchers wrote in their study.
In a follow-up study, the same group of researchers stated that for the survivors being able to kill off zombies, (as seen in the series) as well as the reproduction rate of the populations will grow however it will be very slow and cautious and sometimes risky because of the current situation or condition. With those factors accounted for, the future of mortality did not appear nearly as miserable as it did in the first study.
"We investigate the SIR model applied to a zombie epidemic and introduce new parameters such as the rate at which zombies are killed," the researchers wrote. "We find that it is actually possible for our population to survive the zombie epidemic under these conditions."
Are we equip to fight against the unwanted? Is bio-chemical warfare can lead to humanities extinction? For more update about this topic, tune in only here at iTechpost.com
