When science attacks…

Not only that, the lead researcher's name is Robert Smith? The "?" is actually part of his name. I can't work out whether I'm more impressed by research into the un-dead, or this guy's name…It's a winner.

If zombies actually existed, an attack by them would lead to the collapse of civilisation unless dealt with quickly and aggressively.

That is the conclusion of a mathematical exercise carried out by researchers in Canada.

They say only frequent counter-attacks with increasing force would eradicate the fictional creatures.

Jeez they've just watched a few films…

would you like to see me similarly zombified at that very same big chill just over a week ago? i thought so:

i think i'll have to dust off my old resident evil games!!!

And who pays this Robert Smith? ?

This just sounds like propaganda from some right-wing anti-zombie lobby group if you ask me.

Typical unbalanced BBC reporting. I'd like to see some peer review or comments from the British Re Animated Independent Insentient Individuals & Non-dead Society or some other pro-zombie group.

excellently serious and factually accurate statement from the Professor of Virology at Imperial College. Who says academics don't have a sense of humour?

"My understanding of zombie biology is that if you manage to decapitate a zombie then it's dead forever. So perhaps they are being a little over-pessimistic when they conclude that zombies might take over a city in three or four days," he said.

Sort of 'your research isn't worth the paper it's written on' but not because it's a totally fictitious subject area, it's because they've made a schoolboy error omission on how to stop the undead in their tracks!

GrahamS, what about

The Committee for the Liberation and Integration of Terrifying Organisms and their Rehabilitation Into Society.

theotherjonv: Yeah, but that assumes the general populous knows that decapitation is effective.

If not then we'd all be (un)dead long before the government set up the telephone helpline.

I saw a documentree where this happened and they put out a news report telling people what to do.

No, wait. That was Shaun of the Dead.

Face it, you could knock up a decent zombie decapitating weapon in five minutes, so any attack on a city is going to end in [zombie] tears. Assuming they cry

CaptainFlashheart: the fact that you associate the decaying re-animated corpses of the undead with a lady's special love flower, says far more about your sex life than I care to know 😀

Hmm, that's another interesting modelling study. How soon would word of mouth get around that the only way to off a zombie is to off its head, and would that spread faster or slower than the zombie plague?

The only relevant peer reviewed study I could find on this references the outbreak of Joey Deacon syndrome in the early 80's, in which an estimated 4 million children of school age were exposed to Deaconism at tea time one Monday evening, yet by five past nine the following day every single child in the country had suffered at least one attack.

I thought that I heard this on R4 today but I was half asleep and didn't pay much attention….

SSP

Jeffery Lewis sings an informative song about it.

damn i thought you were on about zombies on Call of Duty on the PS3 for a minute then.

CaptainFlashheart: the fact that you associate the decaying re-animated corpses of the undead with a lady's special love flower, says far more about your sex life than I care to know

He doesn't, that's an old Red Dwarf ('Polymorph' IIRC} gag… 😀

Robert Smith? added the question mark to his surname to stop people confusing him with Robert Smith, lead singer of The Cure.

Could he not have just called himself "Professor Robert Smith"? Mad.

waihiboy – Member

damn i thought you were on about zombies on Call of Duty on the PS3 for a minute then.

Nazi Zombies are a specialist subgroup 🙂