时间:2025-04-02 15:26:30 来源:网络整理编辑:熱點
The zombie apocalypse won't take long.A new article in a peer-reviewed student journal finds that th
The zombie apocalypse won't take long.
A new article in a peer-reviewed student journal finds that the zombie hordes would take Earth's population down to a mere 273 survivors in 100 days.
The paper, published in the University of Leicester's Journal of Physics Special Topics, was a fanciful use of the so-called SIR model, which is used in epidemiology to simulate how diseases spread over time. It's not the first time zombies have been used as a public health metaphor. In December 2015, for example, the British medical journal The Lancetpublished a tongue-in-cheek paper titled "Zombie infections: epidemiology, treatment, and prevention." And a viral blog post from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention urged zombie-apocalypse preparations as a metaphor for real-life disaster preparedness.
SEE ALSO:Someone figured out the death totals on 'Game of Thrones' and 'Walking Dead'In the new analysis, the University of Leicester undergraduates assumed that each zombie would have 90 percent success at finding and infecting one human per day — a rate that would make the zombie virus twice as contagious as the Black Death, the plague that devastated Europe in the 1300s. [Zombie Animals: 5 Real Cases of Body-Snatching]
The researchers further estimated that each zombie could live 20 days without braaaaaains.
Assuming a starting population of 7.5 billion people, approximately the world's population today, the students calculated that it would take 20 days for a single zombie to start an epidemic of noticeable proportions. At that point, the pandemic would have begun. Assuming no geographic isolation, in fact, the human population would drop to 181 by day 100 of the epidemic, with 190 million zombies roaming around.
With some geographical isolation, the situation would be a tiny bit better for humans. Assuming the zombie virus had to spread through contiguous regions and that zombies were somewhat limited in their ability to travel (not leaving their current region until there were 100,000 zombies roaming there), human survivors would number 273 by day 100, the study found.
A more realistic model might assume that each zombie could find fewer human victims over time, the students wrote, because there would simply be fewer humans to find.
"We have also not included the possibility for the humans to kill the zombies," they wrote.
But never fear: In a follow-up paper, the students did just that. They extended the zombie life span to one year in order to up the challenge a bit, but also gave each human a 10 percent chance of killing a zombie each day. They also accounted for human reproduction, assuming reproductive-age women would be able to have a baby once every three years.
These assumptions provided some hope for humanity. Under this model, the human population rapidly dropped off to a few hundred again. However, the zombies died off after 1,000 days, under this model; 10,000 days after the beginning of the epidemic, the human population would start to recover again, the students found.
These glasses hide a fitness tracker on your face2025-04-02 15:15
Chrissy Teigen had the perfect reaction to John Legend being crowned 'sexiest man alive'2025-04-02 15:02
When will YouTube ban Onision?2025-04-02 14:41
Sarah Huckabee Sanders mocked Joe Biden's stutter in a tweet and got ratio'd to heck2025-04-02 14:18
Katy Perry talks 'Rise,' her next batch of songs, and how to survive Twitter2025-04-02 14:15
Someone hired Mark McGrath and Anthony Scaramucci to break up with their boyfriend on Cameo2025-04-02 13:19
Clothing swap for trans teenagers was inspired by a tweet2025-04-02 13:17
Apple Card being investigated by regulators for gender bias2025-04-02 12:55
Singapore rolls out video2025-04-02 12:49
Sarah Huckabee Sanders mocked Joe Biden's stutter in a tweet and got ratio'd to heck2025-04-02 12:41
Pokémon Go is so big that it has its own VR porn parody now2025-04-02 15:18
Peloton's holiday ad has serious horror movie vibes2025-04-02 15:13
Greta Thunberg once again schools Trump, who tried to use her as an impeachment distraction2025-04-02 14:33
Twitter warns UK political party over misleading 'factcheck' rebrand2025-04-02 14:24
How Hyperloop One went off the rails2025-04-02 14:09
Feeling powerless after the UK election result? Here are things you can do right now.2025-04-02 13:46
Move over Libra, DAI stablecoin comes to Coinbase's debit Card2025-04-02 13:42
Head and neck injuries from cell phone use are rising, study finds2025-04-02 13:27
Airbnb activates disaster response site for Louisiana flooding2025-04-02 13:25
Sarah Huckabee Sanders mocked Joe Biden's stutter in a tweet and got ratio'd to heck2025-04-02 12:59