Advancing the Frontiers of Zombology

Although I personally have moved on from the living dead to focus on other terrors (ahhh!!!! Flying Heads!!!!), I am pleased to see that others have the zombie menace well in hand.

Via Respectful Insolence, please direct your attention to this scholarly paper addressing When Zombies Attack: Mathematical Modeling of an Outbreak of Zombie Infection.

The paper has a broader application than merely demonstrating how vulnerable civilization is to collapse:

This is, perhaps unsurprisingly, the first mathematical analysis of an outbreak of zombie infection. While the scenarios considered are obviously not realistic, it is nevertheless instructive to develop mathematical models for an unusual outbreak. This demonstrates the flexibility of mathematical modelling and shows how modelling can respond to a wide variety of challenges in ‘biology’.

Those of you still on zombie-watch duty can disregard that optimistic bit about how "the scenarios considered are obviously not realistic."