If zombies attack

More from the how-do-you-write-this-with-a-straight-face department.

This from the science correspondent of the BBC. Brilliantly done. I'm sceptical here, but I commend these researchers for brightening up my dull day. This is how the story starts:

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

If. Well no harm in being prepared, I reckon.

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

So whose childhood dream to be a comic book artist was crushed by highest levels of education?

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

I'm sure the President of the United States of America as portrayed by a Martin Sheen look-alike in Day of the Zombies (The Undead Walk the Heart of Manhatten. Coming soon) would be happy to have that on a memo on his desk. Did one of those researchers take a moment to stop to hear themselves?

The scientific paper is published in a book - Infectious Diseases Modelling Research Progress.

In books, films, video games and folklore, zombies are undead creatures, able to turn the living into other zombies with a bite.

But there is a serious side to the work.

Oh is there? Who'd have thunk it. Glad to see Science doing its bit to save the world.

In some respects, a zombie "plague" resembles a lethal rapidly-spreading infection.

I'm sure there's a strip somewhere in PhD comics about trying too hard to make research seem relevant.

In their study, the researchers from the University of Ottawa and Carleton University (also in Ottawa) posed a question: If there was to be a battle between zombies and the living, who would win?

Good question. Let's ask Buffy.

Oh and here's the best part:

Professor Robert Smith? (the question mark is part of his surname and not a typographical mistake) and colleagues wrote: "We model a zombie attack using biological assumptions based on popular zombie movies.

"The question mark is part of his surname and not a typographical mistake." Brilliant!! I knew this needed a man with imagination! Like Russell Peter's !xobile with a click in his name!! And his explanation:

On his university web page, the mathematics professor at Ottawa University says the question mark distinguishes him from Robert Smith, lead singer of rock band The Cure.

And just when you were being amused by all this comes the inevitable prophesies (this time backed by Science) of doom and gloom.

To give the living a fighting chance, the researchers chose "classic" slow-moving zombies as our opponents rather than the nimble, intelligent creatures portrayed in some recent films.

Even so, their analysis revealed that a strategy of capturing or curing the zombies would only put off the inevitable.

A fighting chance. That's the best thing about humanity, isn't it? Aliens, vampires, Godzilla, killer tomatoes - they may rip out the heart and guts of the hero's left-hand-man and leave his right-hand-man crippled (but with his sense of humour intact), but we'll always squish them.

In their scientific paper, the authors conclude that humanity's only hope is to "hit them [the undead] hard and hit them often".

They added: "It's imperative that zombies are dealt with quickly or else... we are all in a great deal of trouble."

According to the researchers, the key difference between the zombies and the spread of real infections is that "zombies can come back to life"

Which genius did it take to figure that one out.

But they say that their work has parallels with, for example, the spread of ideas.

Ideas come back to life as well??

The study has been welcomed by one of the world's leading disease specialists, Professor Neil Ferguson, who is one of the UK government's chief advisors on controlling the spread of swine flu.

Is someone calling the zombies pigs? Way to make them annoyed.

"The paper considers something that many of us have worried about - particularly in our younger days - of what would be a feasible way of tackling an outbreak of a rapidly spreading zombie infection," said Professor Ferguson, from Imperial College London.

I'm not afraid. Buffy will save me. And on her day off I call the Ghostbusters.

However he thinks that some of the assumptions made in the paper might be unduly alarmist.

"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.

Today I should feel safe in the knowledge that there are smart men who Understand zombie behaviour. I'll demand to have a 'Break this in case of zombie attack' installed in my building.

Till then, I aim to Know My Enemy, and Be Prepared.

Why, thank you! *blush*

I love a compliment just as much as the next girl, so when it was the national newspaper telling me what my mirror tells me an average of 19 days a month, of course I was flattered.

According to The Times,

Scientists have found that evolution is driving women to become ever more beautiful, while men remain as aesthetically unappealing as their caveman ancestors.

Of course, I knew that this is one compliment that is absolutely true. So it comes as an added bonus that the scientific acknowledgement of my beauty is accompanied by the opportunity to say I-knew-it-all-along.

(Brilliant and beautiful. Can I do human-kind any more favours?)

But honestly, I really can't take all the credit. According to the report,

...good-looking parents were far more likely to conceive daughters.

Thanks Mama, thanks Dada.

Feel free to tell me how you absolutely agree with The Times. And me.

Watching and listening

I found myself at the Science museum, London this weekend, for two very interesting exhibitions.

First - a newly opened exhibit on F1 technology in everyday life.
I was missing the race at Barcelona anyway, and this was my way of consoling myself. The technology on display, which included millimetre-thin dining tables, wheelchairs and high-tech fishing lines, is a far cry from the 'everyday' that happens everyday in your and my homes. It remains however a testament to the engineering superiority of Formula 1.

Second - the Listening Post.
I don't know enough about art to be able to adequately describe this exhibit. It is, at the same time, a work of art, technology, a mirror to society and an astute observation of the philosophies of human conversation.

Made of many (the booklet says 200) tiny electronic screens suspended like a grid and with an accompanying Sci-fi voice soundtrack, this displays fragments from Internet conversations across the world in continually changing patterns and themes.

The creators - Mark Hansen and Ben Rubin say that these are part of 'real-time', 'unedited' and 'uncensored' Internet chats and emails. I can't figure out how that works.

The pace and manner in which the bits of words come together, accompanied by a voice reading out the texts to me is lyrical. Indeed, the artists have divided their work into movements that seem to rise and ebb.

It's brilliant. I spent a good half hour staring transfixed at the blinking screens. Voyeuristically following thousands of thoughts - nonsensical, profound, funny, banal, personal.

It felt exhilarating, to be part of this world, to consider the possibility that someone somewhere might be listening to those thoughts and feelings let loose into cyberspace. Why, they may be sharing the same thoughts.

I think the Listening Post is more attractive because of the anonymity offered to all these conversations.

I've mentioned in previous posts how the idea that I may be getting an audience who can identify me and hold me accountable for all I do and say online has taken some getting used. But something like the Listening Post seems to suggest that my every little blog post or microblog is only part of a larger discourse that is taking place online. Who I am doesn't matter. What I say matters little. That I say it has a significant impact in making me part of a larger community and is my contribution to human communication.

Even if it sometimes feels like I'm shouting in the dark.


As a post script, I must add that there was a third special I went to - a Wallace and Gromit something-something. I crashed in on a kiddie party and probably was the only adult there who stayed for the show despite having no child to distract for half an hour.