Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Ever wondered why cancer is still such a problem or why detergent only kills 99% of germs, its because the boffins of the world are busy contemplating zombie attacks!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8206280.stm

Now where did I put that shotgun!

Nutters. I blame Romero.

Can someone please post the contents of the story so those of us who's workplace cruely limits access to the BBC can read about the zombies?

I was reading the Zombie Survival Guide only this morning before I went to work

If they can put mental power into seedless watermelon they can put mental power into this! This is totally more worthy!

infilTRAITOR wrote:If they can put mental power into seedless watermelon they can put mental power into this! This is totally more worthy!

No man, that would only give the watermelons more planning time. I've seen things! Terrible, terrible things! Seeds everywhere! The groud itself was soaked with the blood of men and melons! Not even the children were spared, melons shoved in every orifice!

Meh. Unlike ebola I can literally kick this bug's ass with a baseball bat or even a moderately sharpened pencil. Eminently easier than dealing with your average gang banger. Zombies only have a chance in the intitial stages, then its Party Time Chainsaw style. On the positive I should be able to picka new TV and sound system during the emergency period. You know the local Federal reserve building is less than three miles from this computer...mmm....

SilverMK2 wrote:Can someone please post the contents of the story so those of us who's workplace cruely limits access to the BBC can read about the zombies?

I was reading the Zombie Survival Guide only this morning before I went to work

Science ponders 'zombie attack'
By Pallab Ghosh
Science correspondent, BBC News



There has been a revival of the zombie film in recent years
If zombies actually existed, an attack by them would lead to the collapse of civilisation unless dealt with quickly and aggressively.

That is the conclusion of a mathematical exercise carried out by researchers in Canada.

They say only frequent counter-attacks with increasing force would eradicate the fictional creatures.

The scientific paper is published in a book - Infectious Diseases Modelling Research Progress.

In books, films, video games and folklore, zombies are undead creatures, able to turn the living into other zombies with a bite.

But there is a serious side to the work.

In some respects, a zombie "plague" resembles a lethal rapidly-spreading infection.

My understanding of zombie biology is that if you manage to decapitate a zombie then it's dead forever

Professor Neil Ferguson
In their study, the researchers from the University of Ottawa and Carleton University (also in Ottawa) posed a question: If there was to be a battle between zombies and the living, who would win?

Professor Robert Smith? (the question mark is part of his surname and not a typographical mistake) and colleagues wrote: "We model a zombie attack using biological assumptions based on popular zombie movies.

"We introduce a basic model for zombie infection and illustrate the outcome with numerical solutions."

On his university web page, the mathematics professor at Ottawa University says the question mark distinguishes him from Robert Smith, lead singer of rock band The Cure.

FROM THE TODAY PROGRAMME


More from Today programme
To give the living a fighting chance, the researchers chose "classic" slow-moving zombies as our opponents rather than the nimble, intelligent creatures portrayed in some recent films.

"While we are trying to be as broad as possible in modelling zombies - especially as there are many variables - we have decided not to consider these individuals," the researchers said.

Back for good?

Even so, their analysis revealed that a strategy of capturing or curing the zombies would only put off the inevitable.

In their scientific paper, the authors conclude that humanity's only hope is to "hit them [the undead] hard and hit them often".

They added: "It's imperative that zombies are dealt with quickly or else... we are all in a great deal of trouble."

According to the researchers, the key difference between the zombies and the spread of real infections is that "zombies can come back to life".

But they say that their work has parallels with, for example, the spread of ideas.

The study has been welcomed by one of the world's leading disease specialists, Professor Neil Ferguson, who is one of the UK government's chief advisors on controlling the spread of swine flu.

"The paper considers something that many of us have worried about - particularly in our younger days - of what would be a feasible way of tackling an outbreak of a rapidly spreading zombie infection," said Professor Ferguson, from Imperial College London.

However he thinks that some of the assumptions made in the paper might be unduly alarmist.

"My understanding of zombie biology is that if you manage to decapitate a zombie then it's dead forever. So perhaps they are being a little over-pessimistic when they conclude that zombies might take over a city in three or four days," he said.

Thanks notprop

And that is pretty cool. I understand that it is thought that Zombie corpses remain infected for some time after they are "killed".

Only destroying the brain will "kill" a zombie, rather than decapitation, which leaves the head still able to bite you (assuming enough of its jaw muscles are left from the decapitating stroke).

But from a single zombie to an entire city in 3-4 days is a bit quick, seeing as it appears to take about 24 hours for a person to turn. Even with a near 100% bite/reanimated zombie rate (some people may die of their injuries before the virus has enough time to develop far enough to "turn" the person).

But the problem is that once they are here, they are difficult to get rid of, especially if people are not prepared and epsecially where sufficient care is not taken to ensure that an area is utterly free of zombies once combat has been resolved.

The great thing about living in the U.S. is that we have an abundance of guns. Zombies wouldn't be more than a weekend's worth of trouble.

The great thing about the UK is... erm... well...

...I guess we are boned.

Though at least our zombies will mob in an orderly fashion and will line up to take it in turns to rip a person to pieces.

*stiffens his upper lip*

SilverMK2 wrote:The great thing about the UK is... erm... well...

...I guess we are boned.

Though at least our zombies will mob in an orderly fashion and will line up to take it in turns to rip a person to pieces.

*stiffens his upper lip*

No no, has Shawn of the Dead taught you NOTHING? Simple cricket bats are more than sufficient to take the fight to the Zombies.

As Zombie Winston Churchill would say
"they will fight us on the beaches. they will fight us in the Tunnels. They will fight us in the Que (but not get out of it). They will fight us in the police boxes..."

Ok actually Zombie Churchill would say "bwaaiiinnnssss..and whisky!"

warpcrafter

The great thing about living in the U.S. is that we have an abundance of guns. Zombies wouldn't be more than a weekend's worth of trouble.

Frazzled

Simple cricket bats are more than sufficient to take the fight to the Zombies.

I predict some losses early on after breakfast, then the sun will pop out on old Blighty as we give the evilones a hiding in the afternoon session. The Yanks will turn up later than expected (having been disagreing some nonsense over who should cover any medical billing and general looting malls of high calibre recreational weaponry) and a sound thrashing will be delivered to the hun-dead in time for tea and Spulk.

Sounds cracking, bring on the Apocalypse!

Notprop for the win!

"Dad, you just shot Zombie Flanders!"
"Flanders was a zombie?"

There a new company doing medical research. There called............The Umbrella Corparation

Professor Ferguson criticised the study because it takes no account of the capability of neutralising disease vectors by chopping their heads off.

It was all on Radio 4 this morning.

The BBC website has an audio file.

Kilkrazy wrote:Professor Ferguson criticised the study because it takes no account of the capability of neutralising disease vectors by chopping their heads off.

It was all on Radio 4 this morning.

The BBC website has an audio file.

Now thats my kind of BBC discussion.

How much credibility can you give a guy with the last name "Smith?" ?

Quite a bit, Mr. Anderson.

It seems to me that,like in the Romero films,outbreaks gain streghth not so much by the zombies themselves,but due to various human factors.
One could easily understand that at the onset of this type of situation most people would be hesitant to belive what they are hearing/seeing throught the media/or even in their own backyard.
Add to this the moral,emotional,religious reactions joe citizen would most likely experiance,I know I would be hesitant to shoot my girlfriend/family in the head,even if they had turned..it would be a normal human response to not want to gun down your loved ones,despite the fact they are trying to eat you.
IMO,these factors are what truly contribute to a zombie outbreak becoming a zombies have over run us situation.

Honestly, I think a Zombie Invasion is exactly what soceity needs right now. Why? Several reasons.

1) The world is horribly overpopulated.
2) People are getting angrier as the pace of day to day life speeds up. Being able to apespitbonkersmental on a human being and get away with it because it's already dead would do a lot to settle peoples nerves and aggression
3) We need a global threat to bring us together as a species
4) The old and the slow would be amongst the highest victim tally, thus solving the impending Pensions blackhole.

Right. I think I'm going to break out 'My First Biology' Set and see if I can't rustle up a T-Virus type thing. Having made myself and my friends immune first of course.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:Having made myself and my friends immune first of course.

that's usually where it all starts mad doc, make sure you try the "lesser" friends first

Oh there are plenty of erm, willing volunteers in Tunbridge Wells. I assure you.

And with some of them, I doubt you'd notice the difference!

Best way to deal with them, surely would be incendiary bombs? Or even better, tinker with those flesh eating viruses we hear so much about. That'd knacker them. Indeed, why not both? Virus, THEN Flame. Just to be make sure.

And indeed if we're looking to be sure, best to Virus then Flame them from Orbit. At night. They mostly come out at night. Mostly.

I just realized, if they are dead, wouldn't flies eat them-er, lay magots in them which would eat them?

Frazzled wrote:I just realized, if they are dead, wouldn't flies eat them-er, lay magots in them which would eat them?

Nah. I reckon Rednecks would munch them first.

Have you all learned NOTHING?

Flamethrowers don't work against zombies!

They just make kamikaze zombies on fire!


But all seriousness, I thought this was quite interesting. Given that zombies are a potential that has been looked at, quite often, by military branches and the like(I mean really. If you had a virus you could loose into the enemy ranks, where their casualties would then attack the living....why the hell wouldn't you do it?) it's plausible.

I mean, it's not gonna happen tommorow or anything--but it's about as plausible as an asteroid striking the earth or alien rapeinvasions.

Kanluwen wrote:Have you all learned NOTHING?

Flamethrowers don't work against zombies!

They just make kamikaze zombies on fire!


But all seriousness, I thought this was quite interesting. Given that zombies are a potential that has been looked at, quite often, by military branches and the like(I mean really. If you had a virus you could loose into the enemy ranks, where their casualties would then attack the living....why the hell wouldn't you do it?) it's plausible.

I mean, it's not gonna happen tommorow or anything--but it's about as plausible as an asteroid striking the earth or alien rapeinvasions.

Good point, no flame throwers......check. Cricket bat wouldn't be much cop against that!

Who's not serious? I've been in the basement since my last post stocking up on jazz fuson LPs and tea cakes for when you Yanks get here, may have to use proxies for spulk though if more than 2 of you make it past the blighters!

Aliens, possibly raping and/or invading........a new twist........hmmm what to do????????

I have spare flame throwers!!

Well thats sorted it nice and neatly.

Stoke me a Kipper, I'll be back for breakfast!

They succeeded in proving that zombie tests are actually useful (read the article again) ... that is amazing. This my friends, is a step forward for nerds everywhere!

Next they will actually determine who would win in a fight... wolverine or spider-man... who knows? We do know that could be one of the most epic fights of all time, but what can we learn from it scientifically... milk came out my nose .

Wait... news just in, there seems to be a better fight that could stand to last for thousands of years, therefore it contains a much larger amount of epic proportions.

WOLVERINE VS. SUPERMAN... is that just lame? We know that technically Wolverine would beat spider man, but spider-man could just piss him off the whole fight. Super-man is bound to just fly around like a punk... because he has a job to do, man what a punk.

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:Honestly, I think a Zombie Invasion is exactly what soceity needs right now. Why? Several reasons.

1) The world is horribly overpopulated.

4) The old and the slow would be amongst the highest victim tally, thus solving the impending Pensions blackhole.

Natural selection Zombie style

The best are bound to get swarmed because they taste more like lean beef, and less like pork .

ZOmbies like hamburgers more than bacon... but if bacon is nearby, beware.