Would you survive in HBO's The Walking Dead?
Brazilian scientists have used mathematical modeling to determine what would happen if the world was to be hit by a Hollywood-style zombie apocalypse.
Unsurprisingly, the odds don't look good for humanity. In fact, the researchers believe just one country would be able to save itself from an army of undead.
That country is North Korea, according to researchers at the Federal University of Juiz de Fora. This is because the tiny socialist state has enough military personnel (47 armed military personnel per 1000 citizens) to protect the general population from flesh-eating zombies.
While a country like the United States is home to numerous guns, the number of people properly trained in how to use them (four military personnel per 1000 citizens) isn't enough to ensure victory for our friends across the Pacific.
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North Korea would be the only country to survive a Walking Dead-style apocalypse, according to Brazilian academics.
Photo: Darkwoods Productions
The paper, titled Modeling our survival in a zombie apocalypse, renders the endings of many zombie films such as 28 Days Later statistically improbable. The modeling was based off an outbreak in a highly-populated area, which is the basis of many films and TV shows such as Fear the Walking Dead.
"Our results indicate that the military intervention is fundamental to the survival of mankind," the paper concludes. "A number of 47 soldiers per 1000 capita is the minimum number necessary to human survival [in a zombie apocalypse]."
The paper isn't the first time mathematicians have done statistical modeling on what would happen if a zombie apocalypse were to occur in real life and not in a dramatic imagining in a film.
Humans would not survive a zombie outbreak in most scenarios, according to a collection of studies published by the University of Ottawa Press.
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Broede Carmody is an entertainment reporter at Fairfax Media.
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