WEBVTT - 100 Days Later: Mathematics of a Zombie Apocalypse 0:00:03.120 --> 0:00:05.920 Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:05.920 --> 0:00:15.360 Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. 0:00:15.400 --> 0:00:18.840 My name is Robert Lamb. My name is Christian Seger. Robert, what, 0:00:18.840 --> 0:00:21.640 what do you think your chances are of surviving if 0:00:21.680 --> 0:00:26.079 like a real zombie apocalypse hit us, a real full 0:00:26.079 --> 0:00:29.319 blown zombie apocalypse? Like, how well would you fair? Do 0:00:29.320 --> 0:00:32.440 you have a you have a plan? Well? Here here's 0:00:32.520 --> 0:00:34.720 here's my thoughts on this. So when we start thinking 0:00:34.760 --> 0:00:38.720 about zombie apocalypse, it's easy for us to start putting 0:00:38.760 --> 0:00:41.839 ourselves in survival mode because we're thinking that black and 0:00:41.880 --> 0:00:46.159 white um view of Okay, I shoot the zombie, uh, 0:00:46.440 --> 0:00:48.360 you know, look out for bad people, and then look 0:00:48.400 --> 0:00:50.040 after my own I can do it. I can do this. 0:00:50.080 --> 0:00:53.159 I can pull this off. However, any kind of zombie 0:00:53.159 --> 0:00:58.080 apocalypse is still essentially like the collapse of civilization, collapse 0:00:58.120 --> 0:01:01.600 of order, and I tend to have low expectations about 0:01:01.600 --> 0:01:05.399 my ability to survive that in any in any way, 0:01:05.480 --> 0:01:09.440 shape or form that would it would feel like a victory, 0:01:09.720 --> 0:01:13.640 right yeah. I On the other hand, so I used 0:01:13.680 --> 0:01:16.679 to work right where they shot the first couple episodes 0:01:16.680 --> 0:01:20.560 of The Walking Dead in downtownta tank ye right where 0:01:20.560 --> 0:01:23.360 the tank was exactly. Tank still there. They just keep 0:01:23.360 --> 0:01:25.560 it up. Yet it is, funnily enough, it's active to 0:01:25.600 --> 0:01:29.160 you can shoot buildings down with it. No, uh but 0:01:30.360 --> 0:01:32.720 yeah at the and so at the time, like I 0:01:32.760 --> 0:01:36.160 was working on horror projects, and my collaborator E. C. Steiner, 0:01:36.360 --> 0:01:38.280 who we know from the show because he's helped out 0:01:38.280 --> 0:01:42.920 with monster science stuff before. Um, he and I put 0:01:42.920 --> 0:01:45.800 a plan together and he where we've got like some 0:01:45.840 --> 0:01:48.680 people in our lives that our go to, like if 0:01:48.720 --> 0:01:51.200 something like this hits, we get them. We put together 0:01:51.240 --> 0:01:54.000 a band, and we have a location, like a secure 0:01:54.040 --> 0:01:58.040 place where we're gonna go. It's the might be the 0:01:58.160 --> 0:02:02.920 library downtown because it doesn't have any windows up until 0:02:02.920 --> 0:02:05.920 like maybe the fourth floor. Problem is, I just found 0:02:05.960 --> 0:02:11.360 out yesterday they instituted thumb print biometric authentication scanners at 0:02:11.360 --> 0:02:14.840 this library, So you can't get in unless your thumbprint 0:02:15.200 --> 0:02:17.799 is like in their database. So but that means that 0:02:17.960 --> 0:02:21.320 zombies with thumb prints they could theoretically, yeah, like if 0:02:21.360 --> 0:02:26.160 students had been turned into zombies, just marginally smart zombies, 0:02:26.200 --> 0:02:31.200 which whole plans Yeah, yeah, exactly exactly. See. My my 0:02:31.440 --> 0:02:34.600 view tends to run more along the lines of Karma 0:02:34.680 --> 0:02:38.400 McCarthy's The Road, Uh, And so I envisioned my place 0:02:38.440 --> 0:02:41.000 in a zombie apocalypse being a daily struggle to see 0:02:41.000 --> 0:02:43.800 if I mercy killed those I love and then myself. 0:02:44.120 --> 0:02:46.960 I've told this on other podcasts I know, but have 0:02:47.080 --> 0:02:50.880 ever told you how I read The Road. I listened 0:02:50.919 --> 0:02:55.080 to it on audio tape while I was running and it, Man, 0:02:55.240 --> 0:02:57.960 that was a depressing workout. Like it was like, I 0:02:57.960 --> 0:03:00.760 don't know, two weeks or whatever it took me to 0:03:00.800 --> 0:03:03.040 get through it during my daily runs. But it was 0:03:03.120 --> 0:03:07.080 like you just like running along and it's just everything 0:03:07.200 --> 0:03:11.919 was gray, everyone was dead. There was depression. You know, 0:03:11.520 --> 0:03:14.880 you've read the book, so I've I've read a couple 0:03:14.919 --> 0:03:16.800 of times. I have not read it since I became 0:03:16.840 --> 0:03:18.919 a father of this. So yeah, I don't know. I 0:03:18.960 --> 0:03:21.280 don't know if I'll ever be ready for that. It's 0:03:21.320 --> 0:03:24.360 good stuff, which leads us to why are we Why 0:03:24.360 --> 0:03:29.000 are we talking about zombies? Well, today we're doing a 0:03:29.040 --> 0:03:32.240 sort of quick version of monster Science here where we're 0:03:32.240 --> 0:03:36.680 going to tackle to very They're called micro studies that 0:03:36.840 --> 0:03:40.680 came out of the University of Leicester. UH. A couple 0:03:40.720 --> 0:03:43.440 of weeks ago we actually posted these to our Facebook page. 0:03:43.440 --> 0:03:45.160 So if you follow us on social media, you might 0:03:45.160 --> 0:03:47.200 have seen these. You may have even commented on them. 0:03:47.240 --> 0:03:49.400 Some of the comments from those Facebook posts are gonna 0:03:49.400 --> 0:03:52.280 show up in today's episode. But we we saw these, 0:03:52.320 --> 0:03:54.200 we thought they were interesting because they were along lines 0:03:54.240 --> 0:03:56.720 of what we do with Monster Science, especially what Robert 0:03:56.720 --> 0:03:59.080 has done in the past with the video series Monster Science. 0:03:59.120 --> 0:04:01.200 If you haven't seen it, I recommend go watch it 0:04:01.240 --> 0:04:04.560 on our site or on YouTube. But zombies come up 0:04:04.640 --> 0:04:08.280 quite a bit when we talk about very various parasitic organisms. 0:04:08.720 --> 0:04:15.040 The Court accepts organism different different parasitic zombifying agents in 0:04:15.080 --> 0:04:18.480 our world, so zombies are very much on the plate 0:04:18.480 --> 0:04:20.760 here and stuff to blow your mind. So when a 0:04:20.839 --> 0:04:24.839 new study came out and grabbed the headlines, we figured 0:04:24.880 --> 0:04:28.040 out we should cover. People really gloamed onto this one 0:04:28.080 --> 0:04:30.560 way or the other. They either loved it or they 0:04:30.600 --> 0:04:33.200 hated it. There's a lot of you out there who 0:04:33.279 --> 0:04:36.120 follow us on social media said please do an episode 0:04:36.120 --> 0:04:38.360 on this, So that's why we're here. But a lot 0:04:38.400 --> 0:04:41.240 of people too were like, this study is bogus and 0:04:41.320 --> 0:04:45.000 here's why, and we're gonna talk about that as well. Um, 0:04:45.200 --> 0:04:47.040 but I'd like to start off, what what what are 0:04:47.080 --> 0:04:50.279 your favorite zombie films? Like, let's let's establish some ground rules. 0:04:50.440 --> 0:04:53.159 There's a lot of zombie entertainment out there right now, 0:04:53.600 --> 0:04:55.640 and it's funny, like I was looking at sort of 0:04:55.680 --> 0:04:58.520 the gamut of all of it, and I forgot about 0:04:58.560 --> 0:05:01.160 some really great movies. Will you go first, Well, what 0:05:01.200 --> 0:05:04.200 are your what are your favorites? Well, my favorite is 0:05:04.240 --> 0:05:07.360 twenty eight Days Later, So so that's the wonderful one. 0:05:07.520 --> 0:05:09.480 That's the one that scared me the most, and I 0:05:09.600 --> 0:05:12.560 and I really like it, like both in terms of 0:05:12.640 --> 0:05:15.520 story and how it shot the most. Um. In fact, 0:05:15.560 --> 0:05:18.360 I got this really great poster at New York Comic 0:05:18.440 --> 0:05:22.800 Con last year by the artist Jacque and it's just 0:05:22.880 --> 0:05:27.080 a big landscape picture of the main character walking down 0:05:27.080 --> 0:05:30.840 a road that's totally abandoned in London, and it's really 0:05:30.880 --> 0:05:33.160 evocative and you can get two of them. The second 0:05:33.160 --> 0:05:35.440 one it's the same thing, except for there's a horde 0:05:35.440 --> 0:05:37.520 of zombies chasing after him. But I prefer I prefer 0:05:37.680 --> 0:05:40.520 the lonely walk. Yeah, that was a great film, especially 0:05:40.600 --> 0:05:42.720 the I would say the first two thirds of that 0:05:42.760 --> 0:05:46.320 film are just just very difficult to beat in terms 0:05:46.360 --> 0:05:48.880 of zombie cinema and there, of course, people are split 0:05:48.920 --> 0:05:51.720 on this. There's some there're some zombie fans out there 0:05:51.720 --> 0:05:55.200 and say, oh, fast zombies not a zombie film. They're 0:05:55.200 --> 0:05:58.280 they're probably cursing us right now for even bringing it up. Maybe, 0:05:58.880 --> 0:06:01.800 but it's actually the zombie slow zombie argument is going 0:06:01.839 --> 0:06:04.840 to be important to the science today. I will come 0:06:04.839 --> 0:06:07.440 in and say that one of my favorites is actually 0:06:07.520 --> 0:06:10.159 a fast zombie film and that is a dead set. 0:06:10.480 --> 0:06:12.560 I haven't seen that. What's that? Yeah? Dead Set? This 0:06:12.600 --> 0:06:15.440 was a two thousand and eight British kind of a 0:06:15.520 --> 0:06:18.839 mini series and it was created by Charlie Brooker, who 0:06:18.839 --> 0:06:22.280 of course everyone is now familiar with because of Black Mirror. 0:06:22.640 --> 0:06:24.560 But this one had fast zombies in it and had 0:06:24.600 --> 0:06:27.719 to do with the cast of a big Brother uk 0:06:28.560 --> 0:06:32.320 Um not being aware that the whole world is is 0:06:32.360 --> 0:06:35.280 falling into zombie chaos. And that's a brilliant premise. Yeah, 0:06:35.320 --> 0:06:36.960 and it sounds like it's going to be a comedy. 0:06:37.240 --> 0:06:39.920 I went into it. This was this It wasn't available 0:06:39.920 --> 0:06:41.160 in the States at the time. I think now it's 0:06:41.200 --> 0:06:43.440 on Netflix, but at the time you had to get 0:06:43.440 --> 0:06:47.039 a like a pirated copy, and so I obtained it, 0:06:47.040 --> 0:06:48.320 and I was telling my wife it's like, oh, I 0:06:48.360 --> 0:06:52.599 got this new comedy but about these reality people, reality 0:06:52.600 --> 0:06:54.599 star people and their zombies. And we're like, oh, that 0:06:54.640 --> 0:06:56.479 sounds great, and we sent out to watch it and 0:06:56.560 --> 0:07:00.160 it is terrifying. Yeah, yeah, it's it's a great it's 0:07:00.200 --> 0:07:04.080 a great, great zombie film. But the fast zombie thing 0:07:04.160 --> 0:07:06.640 is interesting because when it came out a lot of 0:07:06.640 --> 0:07:10.560 people were criticizing Brooker's use of the fast zombies, including 0:07:10.560 --> 0:07:12.640 Simon Peck. He came out in one of the of 0:07:12.640 --> 0:07:14.600 Shaun of the Dead came out and was criticizing it, 0:07:14.880 --> 0:07:18.240 and Brooker basically said, look, we didn't have the budget 0:07:18.320 --> 0:07:20.160 for a horde of zombies, and if you don't have 0:07:20.360 --> 0:07:23.840 the budget for a a full mas of zombie flesh, 0:07:24.240 --> 0:07:26.560 you've got to make the most out of individual zombies 0:07:26.720 --> 0:07:28.280 and the best way to do that is to have 0:07:28.360 --> 0:07:30.480 them run really fast, and you play some Aphex twin 0:07:30.560 --> 0:07:34.680 over it, and while you've got some dead set so 0:07:34.720 --> 0:07:37.240 wait twenty eight days later and probably what the remake 0:07:37.240 --> 0:07:40.880 of Donna the Dead were like, the two big fast 0:07:41.000 --> 0:07:45.400 zombie movies like the start of that, I guess. So 0:07:45.480 --> 0:07:49.520 though you do see some fast and semi fast zombie 0:07:49.640 --> 0:07:52.920 movements in other films as well. Yeah, one of which 0:07:52.920 --> 0:07:55.679 I'll get to in a minute. Well, the original Donna 0:07:55.720 --> 0:07:58.640 the Dead is one of my favorites as well. The 0:07:58.720 --> 0:08:01.360 zax And one is fine, but I really have a 0:08:01.400 --> 0:08:04.240 soft spot for the original one where they're i mean 0:08:04.320 --> 0:08:08.960 both of them, they're in a mall. But it's just, um, 0:08:09.000 --> 0:08:12.600 everything that's great about zombie cinema. Right, it's not about 0:08:12.600 --> 0:08:15.560 the zombies. It's about like the themes of humanity and 0:08:15.600 --> 0:08:18.679 what happens to humanity as a microcosm in the middle 0:08:18.720 --> 0:08:21.320 of this crisis, right. Yeah, Like basically the idea of 0:08:21.360 --> 0:08:23.960 this one is that you have a some survivors and 0:08:24.000 --> 0:08:28.120 they find this shopping mall that has been untouched. I mean, 0:08:28.160 --> 0:08:30.800 there's zombies in it, but nobody's looted it. It's it's 0:08:30.840 --> 0:08:33.400 like a little paradise. Yeah, and reminds me a lot 0:08:33.400 --> 0:08:35.760 of a Michael Caine film that came out I think 0:08:35.800 --> 0:08:39.280 before this, called The Last Valley. I believe it's Uh. 0:08:40.040 --> 0:08:42.720 He's a general and it's uh and they end up 0:08:42.800 --> 0:08:44.680 him him and his troops end up finding a valley 0:08:44.720 --> 0:08:47.000 that's untouched by I want to say it was the 0:08:47.040 --> 0:08:48.880 hundred years War, but it's been a while since I've 0:08:49.080 --> 0:08:52.480 seen it. Okay, huh, that's interesting. Yeah. I think stories 0:08:52.559 --> 0:08:56.400 like that now get like, why don't we throw some 0:08:56.480 --> 0:08:59.480 zombies in there? That'll that'll sell it a little bit better. Yeah. Well, 0:08:59.520 --> 0:09:01.800 I mean it's it's not a bad strategy. Like instead 0:09:01.840 --> 0:09:04.800 of saying zombies first, now, let's find a now I 0:09:04.840 --> 0:09:06.679 need a craft a story around it. Go ahead and 0:09:06.679 --> 0:09:09.040 steal a good story from somewhere else and sorrow a 0:09:09.040 --> 0:09:11.440 good story. Add zombies and you've got something new. And 0:09:11.440 --> 0:09:13.319 that's kind of the theme of the studies that we're 0:09:13.320 --> 0:09:15.640 going to talk about today. Some other of my favorites 0:09:15.679 --> 0:09:18.400 are I don't know, Shaun of the Dead. You mentioned 0:09:18.400 --> 0:09:20.240 that's a great one just to pull out every once 0:09:20.240 --> 0:09:22.079 in a while and have a good laugh. I really 0:09:22.120 --> 0:09:26.240 also like uh for funds, Knight of the Creeps and 0:09:26.360 --> 0:09:31.120 the Omega Man, the Charlie Omega Man. Uh, And Pontypool 0:09:31.400 --> 0:09:33.800 was one that popped up I had forgotten about as 0:09:33.840 --> 0:09:38.560 a great zombie film. That's just really small, low budget 0:09:39.000 --> 0:09:42.920 smart movie. Yeah. Um one that one more that I 0:09:42.920 --> 0:09:45.760 want to mention. Well, I'll mentioned just a couple in passing. 0:09:45.800 --> 0:09:48.840 I'm a big fan of some of the Lucio Fulsey 0:09:49.400 --> 0:09:53.640 Italian zombie films, like The Beyond to a limited extent 0:09:53.720 --> 0:09:56.800 The House by the Cemetery that there's only one undead 0:09:57.000 --> 0:09:59.120 creature in that and he's more of a mad scientist. 0:09:59.640 --> 0:10:01.959 But one of the best that I would I would 0:10:01.960 --> 0:10:05.920 just be remisfected to mention is Return the The Return 0:10:05.960 --> 0:10:12.679 of the Living Dead. This one was directed by Dan O'Bannon. Wow. Really, Okay, 0:10:12.720 --> 0:10:14.600 you were talking to me about this beforehand and I 0:10:14.640 --> 0:10:17.280 didn't know much about it. But now that you've said 0:10:17.360 --> 0:10:20.000 Dan O'Bannon, I have a much clear head idea in 0:10:20.040 --> 0:10:23.040 my head of what what this is going to be, Like, Oh, yeah, 0:10:23.160 --> 0:10:27.160 it's it's Dan O'Bannon. Maybe the crankiest person in any 0:10:27.280 --> 0:10:30.840 of the Alien behind the scenes interviews, Like if you 0:10:30.840 --> 0:10:33.880 ever watch any of the like DVD extras where they 0:10:33.880 --> 0:10:37.280 talked to Dan O'Bannon, he's just not a happy camper. 0:10:38.240 --> 0:10:41.360 Well he luckily for us he did. Uh. He did 0:10:41.480 --> 0:10:43.840 have a role in some some pretty cool films here 0:10:43.880 --> 0:10:45.439 and there, and this is one of them. This this 0:10:45.520 --> 0:10:48.960 is a zombie film that it's fun, it has it 0:10:49.000 --> 0:10:52.160 has some some gore moments, some wonderful zombie effects, but 0:10:52.200 --> 0:10:56.840 the zombies talk, the zombies eat brains. It's it's faculous. 0:10:57.000 --> 0:10:59.480 I think he had something to do with Life Force too, 0:10:59.600 --> 0:11:04.280 didn't he the Toby Hooper one, Yes, you wrote the screenplay. Okay, yeah, 0:11:04.280 --> 0:11:06.400 I mean he was involved. That was right after this, 0:11:07.160 --> 0:11:12.560 So yeah, Alien, Blue, thunder Dead and Buried. He's had 0:11:12.559 --> 0:11:17.920 he's had his hands Carpenter on what was Carpenter's first thing. 0:11:18.320 --> 0:11:21.760 They worked on something together. Anyways, So you know you're 0:11:21.760 --> 0:11:23.679 probably wondering, well, why are you guys nerd ing out 0:11:23.720 --> 0:11:27.679 about this? Stop nerding out. Well, one thing that we're 0:11:27.760 --> 0:11:30.679 actually starting to do along with some of our episodes, 0:11:30.720 --> 0:11:32.400 and you may be familiar with this if you follow 0:11:32.440 --> 0:11:35.240 us on social media, is, uh, we're trying to do 0:11:35.480 --> 0:11:39.320 every couple of Fridays a Facebook live event where we 0:11:39.440 --> 0:11:43.120 do trailer talk about the science that we cover in 0:11:43.200 --> 0:11:47.240 the podcast that week over movie trailers that are related 0:11:47.280 --> 0:11:51.160 to what we're doing. So probably uh, this week that 0:11:51.200 --> 0:11:54.360 we're recording this, so those of you who are listening 0:11:54.360 --> 0:11:56.360 that this will have happened in the past, but we'll 0:11:56.400 --> 0:12:00.400 do a zombie trailer thing along the lines of this episode. 0:12:00.760 --> 0:12:04.040 It will be on our Facebook and you can watch. 0:12:04.080 --> 0:12:07.160 It will be Robert and I talking over trailers, basically 0:12:07.160 --> 0:12:10.240 applying what we what we learned here today and what 0:12:10.440 --> 0:12:14.640 is that. Well, so this is the general idea here 0:12:14.760 --> 0:12:18.160 seems to be and this isn't just the University of Lester, 0:12:18.280 --> 0:12:22.600 but it seems to be using theoretical zombie science to 0:12:22.760 --> 0:12:26.040 teach the public about the importance of public health and 0:12:26.160 --> 0:12:30.480 disaster preparedness. Um. Now that the university's press release for 0:12:30.480 --> 0:12:32.680 the specific thing that we're going to talk about today, 0:12:32.920 --> 0:12:35.640 they say that their science Topics module is trying to 0:12:35.679 --> 0:12:39.280 add a sense of humor to teaching sound scientific principles 0:12:39.600 --> 0:12:43.440 to help communicate science to the public. Now, I have 0:12:43.520 --> 0:12:46.360 to note here, though, there was a huge disclaimer from 0:12:46.360 --> 0:12:48.600 the university at the top of the press release to 0:12:48.720 --> 0:12:51.679 make sure that everybody knew that the release didn't actually, 0:12:51.960 --> 0:12:56.480 uh like represent the institution's views. Uh. And I find 0:12:56.520 --> 0:12:58.679 that funny having formally worked in academia. I'll talk a 0:12:58.720 --> 0:13:02.240 little bit about that later in the episode. But basically, 0:13:02.400 --> 0:13:06.760 they've got this undergraduate program, and these undergraduates are assigned 0:13:07.040 --> 0:13:10.720 to write and critique and publish their own research papers 0:13:10.720 --> 0:13:14.559 in a group. Uh. And they apply the scientific principles 0:13:14.600 --> 0:13:18.160 to phenomena from things like pop culture or everyday life. 0:13:18.160 --> 0:13:21.600 So you get these zombie studies, you get, um, something 0:13:21.640 --> 0:13:23.960 similar to the episode that you and I did on 0:13:24.040 --> 0:13:28.640 vampire physics and stuff like that. The purpose isn't to 0:13:29.240 --> 0:13:32.920 actually learn zombie science. The purpose is to teach these 0:13:32.920 --> 0:13:36.360 students in the public that's reading their work about how 0:13:36.440 --> 0:13:39.880 scientific principles can be applied in the real world. So 0:13:39.920 --> 0:13:43.200 it's it's really a communications method. Yeah, and for the 0:13:43.200 --> 0:13:45.320 most party tends to work these studies, and this was 0:13:45.559 --> 0:13:46.720 not you know, like you said, this is not the 0:13:46.760 --> 0:13:48.800 first study to do this. They've been a few different 0:13:48.840 --> 0:13:52.120 that have tackled zombies, vampire one. I don't know if 0:13:52.120 --> 0:13:56.280 there's been a werewolf one or one that tackles Frankenstein's right, 0:13:56.400 --> 0:13:59.480 but somebody get on a franken staff, how how how 0:13:59.520 --> 0:14:03.680 do frank Stein's spread? Let us know, um, But but 0:14:03.760 --> 0:14:05.880 you know that these are the studies that do capture 0:14:05.880 --> 0:14:08.600 public attention. They show up on stuff like the Colbert Report, 0:14:09.200 --> 0:14:12.120 So it's yeah, it's worth it's worth keeping. They're worth 0:14:12.120 --> 0:14:14.719 doing in my opinion. So the papers, the way that 0:14:14.760 --> 0:14:17.760 it works is they're openly published in the university's own 0:14:17.880 --> 0:14:20.320 online journal, and this is an open access journal that 0:14:20.360 --> 0:14:24.040 anybody can read, and they're scrutinized at the same level 0:14:24.240 --> 0:14:28.400 that you know, regular academic papers would be that are published. 0:14:28.600 --> 0:14:32.760 They encourage these undergraduates to have a realistic introduction to 0:14:32.920 --> 0:14:37.400 how difficult academic publishing and peer review is, and it 0:14:37.520 --> 0:14:41.440 prepares them for a career in scientific research. Uh So 0:14:41.480 --> 0:14:44.520 they introduced this their department. It's actually not that new 0:14:44.520 --> 0:14:48.280 of a thing. They started doing this in UM. Of course, 0:14:48.720 --> 0:14:53.040 some people have criticized them for taking trivial there. They 0:14:53.080 --> 0:14:56.960 say they're trivializing science, and they also say that they're 0:14:56.960 --> 0:15:01.600 wasting public funds unquote zany non topics. The scholars who 0:15:01.600 --> 0:15:04.920 are running the program actually argue, well, it's more about 0:15:04.960 --> 0:15:09.120 the communication and teaching than it is about the actual research. 0:15:10.000 --> 0:15:12.280 Now this is where I'm going to talk about my 0:15:12.320 --> 0:15:15.760 own experience here UM with this type of thinking in academia. 0:15:15.880 --> 0:15:17.840 So I've mentioned this before, but I used to work 0:15:17.880 --> 0:15:20.400 at a state university here in Atlanta. I was in 0:15:20.440 --> 0:15:23.160 public relations there, so part of my job was to 0:15:23.600 --> 0:15:27.960 get people interested in the library in particular, and while 0:15:28.000 --> 0:15:31.160 I was there, they there were a couple of instances 0:15:31.240 --> 0:15:34.320 that popped up that were like this, and I saw 0:15:34.480 --> 0:15:39.280 firsthand the gnashing of teeth of these academics who saw, 0:15:39.640 --> 0:15:42.400 this is trivializing what we do, This is such a waste. 0:15:43.000 --> 0:15:45.920 One of them was that the library wanted to do 0:15:46.040 --> 0:15:51.000 like a zombie gag kind of video trailer, uh, that 0:15:51.080 --> 0:15:53.480 taught people how to use the library. So like the 0:15:53.520 --> 0:15:57.600 gag was like students were trapped in a study room 0:15:57.880 --> 0:15:59.760 and there were zombies all around them and they needed 0:15:59.760 --> 0:16:03.720 to use like library resources to to get help, right. Um, 0:16:03.800 --> 0:16:07.120 stuff like that. Also around the same time, and you 0:16:07.120 --> 0:16:09.280 and I talked about this the c d C. This 0:16:09.320 --> 0:16:12.960 was in two thousand nine, the CDC started this public 0:16:13.000 --> 0:16:17.080 advocacy program where they did a whole thing about zombies. Uh. 0:16:17.160 --> 0:16:20.400 The CDC is based here in Atlanta, and I mean, 0:16:20.440 --> 0:16:21.960 I guess I think it's it's safe to say a 0:16:22.040 --> 0:16:23.880 lot of the universities here feel like a sort of 0:16:23.920 --> 0:16:26.640 affinity and connection with the CDC and that it represents 0:16:26.680 --> 0:16:30.480 them somehow. And man, did I hear people complaining about that, like, oh, 0:16:30.520 --> 0:16:32.800 what is the CDC doing? This is such a waste 0:16:32.800 --> 0:16:35.120 of time. And it was the same effort. Basically, the 0:16:35.160 --> 0:16:37.640 idea was like I think they had like a zombie 0:16:37.760 --> 0:16:41.240 kind of like preparedness guide or blog or something like that. 0:16:41.520 --> 0:16:44.880 It was silly, but it was the idea wasn't like, hey, 0:16:44.960 --> 0:16:48.440 zombies are real. It was Hey, we're the CDC, We're real. 0:16:48.880 --> 0:16:51.080 You should know about us, and like maybe if you 0:16:51.120 --> 0:16:52.480 come and you take a look at this stuff, you'll 0:16:52.520 --> 0:16:54.800 learn about what we actually do. Yeah, I mean the 0:16:54.800 --> 0:16:58.120 criticism here also reminds me of the critics of the 0:16:58.160 --> 0:17:01.560 Ignoble Prize. You have in the past said, oh, well, 0:17:01.600 --> 0:17:04.879 this trivializes science. You're high you're you're making fun of science. 0:17:04.880 --> 0:17:08.040 You're you're highlighting studies that aren't important, that sort of thing, 0:17:08.080 --> 0:17:13.000 And yeah, I think, uh, those tend to be just 0:17:13.040 --> 0:17:16.280 a few outliers for the most part, I feel, but 0:17:16.320 --> 0:17:18.679 I think it's obviously more about just having fun with 0:17:18.720 --> 0:17:22.840 the topic and generating some attention to to the to 0:17:22.960 --> 0:17:25.320 these particular studies that are in the case of the 0:17:25.320 --> 0:17:28.760 Ignoble Prizes, and none of them are ridiculous. We've we've 0:17:28.800 --> 0:17:31.720 covered them before on the show two years running, where 0:17:31.760 --> 0:17:34.320 we really highlight that, yeah, each of these studies actually 0:17:34.480 --> 0:17:38.480 is doing something of scientific importance. It may not be, uh, 0:17:38.520 --> 0:17:41.160 it may not be curing cancer, and it may seem 0:17:41.200 --> 0:17:44.040 a little bit shrimp on a treadmill to you, but 0:17:44.280 --> 0:17:47.679 it's all part of the scientific effort. Yeah. And in 0:17:47.760 --> 0:17:49.639 my experience, like most of the people who get upset 0:17:49.640 --> 0:17:52.639 about this are are old guard academics who you know, 0:17:52.840 --> 0:17:55.760 it's threatening to them. They feel like it's threatening their routine. 0:17:56.040 --> 0:17:58.199 It's just, you know, I think, a regular kind of 0:17:58.200 --> 0:18:01.120 cyclical thing that happens in academia. And you do see 0:18:01.119 --> 0:18:03.080 other outlets engaged in this sort of thing on a 0:18:03.080 --> 0:18:06.480 regular basis. For instance, the British Medical Journal, they put 0:18:06.480 --> 0:18:08.960 out a Christmas edition every year where they play around 0:18:09.040 --> 0:18:11.399 with the format a bit more. And in two thousand 0:18:11.520 --> 0:18:16.880 fifteen they actually put out a paper Zombie Infections Epidemiology, 0:18:16.920 --> 0:18:20.719 Treatment and Prevention by Tara Smith, Associate professor at Kent 0:18:20.760 --> 0:18:23.320 State University in Ohio. And this was a tongue in 0:18:23.359 --> 0:18:27.440 cheek article that that explored the idea of a zombie outbreak. Yeah. Yeah, 0:18:27.480 --> 0:18:29.280 And so we've got a lot of stuff like that 0:18:29.320 --> 0:18:32.240 out there. I think if you've heard about it, like 0:18:32.280 --> 0:18:34.359 we've heard about it, and you've seen them running on 0:18:34.440 --> 0:18:36.560 sites like I think I first saw it on Live 0:18:36.640 --> 0:18:38.480 Science and then actually here at how stuff works. We 0:18:38.560 --> 0:18:42.080 ended up running an article about it. Um. Uh. You know, 0:18:42.200 --> 0:18:43.880 I see it as like this is a great way 0:18:43.920 --> 0:18:47.000 to get people interested in communicating about actual, real life 0:18:47.000 --> 0:18:51.160 public health issues. Um. And it's interesting we saw that 0:18:51.480 --> 0:18:53.879 in our Facebook thread and so some of those comments 0:18:53.920 --> 0:18:55.719 I want to bring into it today after we go 0:18:55.880 --> 0:18:59.280 through these studies, because there was a lot of a 0:18:59.280 --> 0:19:01.440 lot of react is a lot of arguing that was 0:19:01.560 --> 0:19:04.320 very logical. But if they had read the studies all 0:19:04.359 --> 0:19:06.680 the way through, I think most of their questions would 0:19:06.680 --> 0:19:09.800 have been answered. And not to mention, this kind of 0:19:09.800 --> 0:19:12.000 project really speaks to our own mission here. It's suptable 0:19:12.040 --> 0:19:13.439 in your mind what we try to do with the 0:19:13.440 --> 0:19:17.359 show as well make science accessible and fun Alright, Well, 0:19:17.480 --> 0:19:18.879 on that note, I think maybe we should take a 0:19:18.920 --> 0:19:21.160 quick break and when we come back, let's jump into 0:19:21.200 --> 0:19:29.600 the study and talk about exactly what it consists. Off. Okay, 0:19:29.600 --> 0:19:33.560 we're back. So there's actually two studies that were done 0:19:33.600 --> 0:19:36.720 here at this at the University of Leicester, uh. And 0:19:36.840 --> 0:19:40.160 the students that were involved. Their names were ct Davies, 0:19:40.680 --> 0:19:45.399 kJ Cheshire are Garrett Lee and Jay Moore, and they 0:19:45.480 --> 0:19:49.240 used a real epidemiological model to figure out how long 0:19:49.359 --> 0:19:53.320 it would take zombies to wipe out humanity. They did 0:19:53.680 --> 0:19:56.440 two studies, the second of which concluded that there would 0:19:56.440 --> 0:20:00.560 be less than three hundred survivors remaining after one hundred 0:20:00.640 --> 0:20:05.240 days of a zombie outbreak, So there's some hope. Uh, 0:20:05.280 --> 0:20:08.400 And I'm I'm tentatively calling this a hundred days later 0:20:08.480 --> 0:20:10.760 because they're using them basically like what would what what 0:20:10.800 --> 0:20:14.280 would it look like? Specifically a hundred days after the outbreak? 0:20:14.760 --> 0:20:17.399 They assumed the following in their study. The first was 0:20:17.720 --> 0:20:21.520 that a zombie can find one person each day, and 0:20:21.600 --> 0:20:25.399 the second was that a zombie has a nine chance 0:20:25.440 --> 0:20:30.280 of infecting their victims, which seems pretty high. By day 0:20:30.320 --> 0:20:33.760 one hundred, they calculated there would only be two hundred 0:20:33.760 --> 0:20:38.240 and seventy three remaining humans, with a million to one 0:20:38.400 --> 0:20:40.159 zombies to that, so there would be two hundred and 0:20:40.160 --> 0:20:45.959 seventy three million zombies. They considered that the probability of 0:20:46.000 --> 0:20:50.000 infection would actually become less realistic as the zombie to 0:20:50.200 --> 0:20:53.560 human ratio increases, so that that will be important later 0:20:53.600 --> 0:20:55.600 because that was a common complaint of some of the people. 0:20:55.600 --> 0:20:58.359 Would just be harder for the remaining humans to be 0:20:58.400 --> 0:21:00.640 infected because there would just be too many zombies too 0:21:00.640 --> 0:21:03.159 few humans, and the humans that are left are probably 0:21:03.200 --> 0:21:06.560 hardened to the realities exactly like we see on Walking Death, Like, 0:21:06.600 --> 0:21:10.680 if you're by the later seasons, you should know when 0:21:10.720 --> 0:21:14.800 to reach into the zombie horde with a hammer exactly. Yeah, yeah, 0:21:14.840 --> 0:21:19.119 you've developed the necessary skills. So the model they used 0:21:19.280 --> 0:21:22.240 is a real model. That's called the S I R model, 0:21:22.600 --> 0:21:26.480 and it describes the spread of a disease throughout a population. 0:21:26.800 --> 0:21:29.960 It considers the rates at which infections spread and die 0:21:30.000 --> 0:21:33.159 off as individuals and the population come into contact with 0:21:33.160 --> 0:21:35.000 each other. So this seems like an important thing that 0:21:35.040 --> 0:21:37.879 we should, you know, have a basic understanding of. It 0:21:38.000 --> 0:21:42.120