Zombies no match for Ottawa scholars

The Ottawa Citizen finally ran a story with journalistic integrity befitting a big city daily:

Several Ottawa mathematicians have been picking their large, delectable brains over whether humankind could survive a zombie apocalypse.

Their conclusion?

The Ottawa Citizen finally ran a story with journalistic integrity befitting a big city daily:

"An outbreak of zombies infecting humans is likely to be disastrous, unless extremely aggressive tactics are employed against the undead," says the paper, titled When Zombies Attack! Mathematical Modelling of an Outbreak of Zombie Infection.

"Thus, if zombies arrive, we must act quickly and decisively to eradicate them before they eradicate us."

Of course, the researchers -- all mathematicians from Carleton University and the University of Ottawa -- took their undead, flesh-eating topic with a large pinch of salt.

"Zombies are about the same as any other major infectious disease -- they get out and we try to eliminate them," said Joe Imad, a University of Ottawa math student and one of the paper's co-authors. "Modelling zombies would be the same as modelling swine flu, with some differences for sure, but it is much more interesting to read."

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