Finnish scientists from Aalto University simulated a fictional scenario in which a zombie invasion occurs in Finland. The science fiction story aims to help understand how pathogens spread in the event of a real epidemic. The research was published in the official gazette Web site scientific institution.
Experts mathematically calculated how quickly an army of the undead could populate the country. For example, the time window for containing the epidemic of the walking dead turned out to be too short – if measures are not taken within the first seven hours, just one zombie can turn the entire population of Helsinki into its own kind. If the capital is captured, it will no longer be possible to save the rest of the country.
“The large number of human-zombie interactions that need to be modeled makes this task very computationally intensive,” said study co-author Natalya Veselinova.
Using fiction to understand how epidemics work is not a new idea in science. In particular, a bug that appeared in the massively multiplayer online game World of Warcraft in 2005, which led to the spread of diseases in the virtual world, allowed us to simulate an epidemic scenario. Another Plague Inc video game. It was used by scientists in the simulation type to study the COVID-19 epidemic.
According to the study’s authors, their modeling can also be applied to other problems, such as examining the spread of rumors, gossip, and misinformation.
Previously microbiologists warnedHe said that the scenario in the video game The Last of Us, in which a fungal infection causes a zombie apocalypse, could become reality.