How long would a zombie apocalypse last

The report, titled "Zombie infections: epidemiology, treatment, and prevention," made use of the SIR compartmental epidemiology model, which is something you can parrot back to your friends if you ever think they're starting to suspect that you're not very smart.

SIR makes use of three potential categories of living beings in a rhetorical outbreak scenario: the Susceptible, the Infected, and the Recovered. A couple of things to keep in mind. Number one, the initial report didn't take into account the possibility that humans would fight back, spitting in the face of decades of Romero movies. Zombies IRL Applying such techniques to the flesh-devouring masses provides more than geeky entertainment, Smith said.

It also serves an educational purpose, with a number of colleges and even high schools using the paper to introduce mathematical modeling to students, he said. Tara Smith, an infectious disease professor at the University of Iowa, uses the paper to show how math models can predict the effects of quarantines, vaccines and other public health measures.

The zombie model's methods have already proved useful in at least one real-life analysis. While working on a model of HPV human papillomavirus , Robert Smith's team noted that transmission via both gay and straight sex introduced two nonlinear variables to the equation. Fortunately, the zombie model had already blazed this path, demonstrating how to handle multiple nonlinear factors.

That real-world relevance in part explains the pop-culture resurgence of zombies over the last few years, Mogk said. As epidemics and emerging diseases like SARS and swine flu have grabbed the headlines, zombie fictions like "Walking Dead" and "28 Days Later" have brought the undead a new cultural cachet, he said.

Follow Michael Dhar on Twitter mid Original article on LiveScience. IE 11 is not supported. For an optimal experience visit our site on another browser. Politics Covid U. News World Opinion Business. The question here, as I think has already been stated in the article as well as the comments, is if the zombie infection deters the organisms that cause decomposition from eating away at the flesh or if the normal rate of decomposition still applies. Separate of course from other factors such as temperature, climate, and terrain to name a few.

Zombies drool. The sun is relentless. The dry air is relentless. End of game. But zombies also eat humans who are stock full of moisture. There are animals who go their whole lives without one drink of water just by getting water from plants and other organisms that they eat. We have cats and they drink plenty.

I love how your name is Selina and you were the one who brought up cats!! I think that if the water the zombies have to begin with, adding of course the water obtained via other humans eaten, found a way to metabolize into fat of some form depending solely on how dead the zombies will be , then it is possible that the conflict can and will be very prolonged. OMG, and they can also convert this mystery lipid into water to explain all the slobbering which, wait, continues to lose water.

OK, that dead ended. In the end zombies or whatever code group is in a similar state would last days, not months, and not years. I am going to explain this in as simple of a manner as I possibly can to you, since you obviously have no working knowledge of basic human anatomy. It will remain water. Now, my theory is based on the idea that, in all likelihood, zombies are alive and infected with some form of an RNA virus. Therefore, when they feed on other humans, what they digest nourishes their body.

This includes ingesting the water from their victim via blood, brain fluid, and other liquids in the human body. This is much different from a fat body. With their hunting and stalking of prey, some of the fat will eventually be worked off. This gives them reason to continue to hunt and feed. By those means, the zombie apocalypse would last much longer because the zombies would be living creatures whose nourishment is us.

Class dismissed. By the end of the first stage of decay in a human corpse — which can be as short as a week — the bacteria in the mouth has traveled to the brain and eaten it out so much that it oozes out of the nose like mush.

Well assuming that we are talking of zombies that are finally killed when they have no brain they must reach stage two. But the passage above is right it could take longer for them to decompose. If that is the case you must also plug in Geographical entities such as hot weather and cold weather. After all of that you must also see if they have a migration, the more they move the more the body of the undead breaks down.

Upon factoring all those plus natural decomposition you could look at a matter of weeks or years. The danger is what the zombie can achieve in thatamount of time because for everyone that is newly created, the clock starts over. Also, I have a question as to whether the zombie virus can be spread thru aerosol activities like naplaming an open field of them and the smoke from the burning bodies carry the zombie plaque.

There is a strong, and common, belief that a zombies brain shuts down with the exception of the baser functions run by the Medulla Oblongata, or brain stem. The Pituitary gland is a growth hormone producing gland located in the brain with the Hypothalamus connected to this gland. Allowing zombies to last much longer then might have been considered possible. I imagine that a cooler climate would slow the rate of decomposition, but what if the temp falls below freezing?

Would the zombie simply lay dormant until it thawed? Or will it continue to try to move, possibly even to the point where it cracks and shatters? I have been interested in this supposed lifespan issue. Would be a good topic to play with in a story. Else, must deal with the subject, which could be heresy? Oh my. Does anyone have ever think about rats? This type of questions might spread and make the infection last for more than we think.

I had a zombie dream once where I was holed up in a Home Depot. I used things like muriatic acid and lime to accelerate the decomposition of the shufflers outside by dumping it on them from the roof. Having constructed cisterns to catch rain water and a make shift vegetable garden in the garden center I woke up deciding that Home Depot was a pretty damn good safe haven. Considering realistically, that a zombie was just a psychopathic maniac that was infected by a contagion, instead of litterally undead, i would say a good few months shoould kill all of the zombies, however depending on the contagion, IT could remain on surfaces for potentionally years, this means that litterally ALL surfaces touched by the infected could become transfer methods to the uninfected…leading to a reapeat of the infection cycle, in the event that the contagion becomes airborne, due to decomp.

I appreciate all the recommendations, keep em coming! Thanks so much! Hope you are having a great day.