Scientists Agree: In Case of Zombie Outbreak, Leave the City

Where would you run if zombies attack? The best place in the U.S. to escape from hypothetical brain feeders, according to a new simulation from real-life Cornell University researchers that they will present later this week, is the Northern Rockies. Not on the list: your favorite densely populated metro area.

The Cornell simulation, which you can play with here, draws data from the 2010 U.S. Census and depends on the SIR model, an epidemiological model sometimes used to predict the spread of real-life infectious diseases like measles and rubella. In the SIR model, individuals are either susceptible (S), infected (I) or recovered or immune (R) from a disease. But with zombies, of course, there's a bit of a twist: Once a zombie, always a zombie. There are no R's here. As Alex Alemi, one of the Cornell researchers, told NewScientist, "Zombies don't get better, nor do they die, so the only way you can get rid of a zombie is for a human to actively kill it."