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In the upshot of a zombie spirit outbreak , the best way to avoid sire infected is to quell off from populated arena , accord to a new study . In fact , research suggests the outback and pristine Rocky Mountains may be the ultimate hiding place to avoid becoming the " walk dead . "

To figure out the right way to survive a snake god apocalypse , a squad of researchers modeled what would occur if anepidemic of the undeadwere to hit the United States .

World War Z zombies

The fast-paced zombies of “World War Z."

" We did a full U.S.-scale pretense of 307 million individuals and yard of outbreaks , to see who ended up infected and who did not , " said Alex Alemi , a alumnus scholarly person in theoretic physics at Cornell University in Ithaca , New York . " The takeaway is , you want to be as far out from as many people as possible , " he said . [ See simulation of a zombi outbreak in the U.S. ]

While Alemi was take up a graduate - level statistical mechanics row , he record the popular zombi novel " World War omega " by Max Brooks , and it exalt him to model an imaginedzombieoutbreak . Alemi will award his determination Thursday ( March 5 ) at a confluence of theAmerican Physical Society in San Antonio .

But the research , while merriment , also has real - world applications . " We ’re kind of hoping that with zombies , we can introduce hoi polloi to some of the technique used to model real diseases , " Alemi say .

an apocalyptic cityscape with orange sky

good space to hide

So , where should you go tosurvive a zombie epidemic ?

invalidate metropolis , because urban areas experienced the worst outbreaks in the model , Alemi said . " Basically , all the major cities are somewhat much out of luck — there are just too many people too close together , " he said . astonishingly , the area between Los Angeles and San Francisco was actually bad than either urban center , because it was within orbit of two outbreak epicenters .

A caterpillar covered in parasitic wasp cocoons.

You ’re better off heading to remote , rural areas , Alemi say . In peculiar , the northernRocky Mountainsregion was one of the safest places in the example , because it is so unobtainable and so few people live on there , Alemi state .

Most popular accounts of zombi outbreaks adopt that the outbreak affects everywhere at the same time , but this is n’t how a disease spreads in veridical life , Alemi say .

" A zombi eruption really slack down once it gets out of populated expanse , " Alemi enounce . " In the country , it takes them a longsighted time to make their way across the map . But in metropolis , if you ’ve got million of them , some are going to make their way in any direction " and infect people , he say .

Close-up of an ants head.

Zombie epidemic

The simplest model of real diseases , which divides masses into three radical ( susceptible , infectious and recovered / remove ) , is known as the SIR model . Each group is represent by a mathematical purpose , whichdetermines how the eruption will evolve over time .

In demarcation , Alemi and his colleague developed an " SZR " modeling , in which " Z " present the living dead state . Here , " R " represents " dead " automaton that have been killed by humans ( presumptively bydestroying their brains , as in " World War Z " or the boob tube serial " The Walking Dead " ) .

a picture of the Cerro Uturuncu volcano

Some researchers have essay to pose zombie outbreaks before , but unlike these earlier studies , Alemi ’s model need into history haphazardness . Each interaction , such as a zombie biting a man or a homo killing a snake god , was treated like the decomposition of a radioactive element , with a half - liveliness that reckon on the conditions .

The researchers ran a simulation of 307 million people and thousands of zombi outbreaks across the United States , to see how the infection might diffuse .

Alemi made several laying claim to keep the simulation simple . For example , he assumed that humans do n’t really move around orget on airplanes during the outbreak . Such an August 15 is sensible , he say , because if an outbreak were to occur chop-chop , major conveyance networks would credibly shut down . But next study might take human travel into account , Alemi said .

An artist�s interpretation of asteroids orbiting a magnetar

Of course , all of this is fabricated . Unless Alemi and his fellow be intimate something we do n’t …

The finding were detailed in a field of study posted on the preprint serverthe ArXiv .

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