CDC partners with AMC drama ‘The Walking Dead’
Author: By Aaron Sagers Special to CNN

http://www.wfmz.com/Are-you-prepared-for-zombie-apocalypse/-/121798/8932668/-/7lffic/-/

(CNN) -

Look at you, all plump and fleshy, with a quickening pulse and body jam-packed with sweet meats. That brain of yours, with the scrumptious gray matter and thinking cap makes certain re-animated corpses crave a dining bib.

So what are you to do when the formerly living awaken with a hunger for a little human takeout? Are you ready for the zombie apocalypse?

Probably not. If you have to ask yourself that question, or took a moment before answering, then definitely not. In the time it took you to hesitate, even the slowest zombie could pull a dine and dash — or shamble — on you.

On the upside, you’re in luck since most people haven’t made the adequate preparations for Z-day.

Here’s the deal: A zombie can be a member of the walking dead or a barely living victim from a curse, virus, etc., and alternately run or shamble. They can be the creation of stupid humans, angry gods, black magic, mad science, cosmic events or — as is most often the case — comic book/sci-fi/horror nerds. But whatever their origin, they are a problem that must be dealt with.

But not even the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention thinks the masses are ready for the onslaught of the undead.

“There are insufficient people prepared for emergencies in the United States,” said Rear Adm. Ali S. Khan of the CDC.

A multi-credentialed doctor, assistant surgeon general and director of the CDC’s Office of Public Health Preparedness and Response, Khan was behind the zombie preparedness guide the organization published online May 2011.

Inspired by zombie-related social media buzz after the Fukushima Daichii nuclear disaster in Japan last March, and released days before Harold Camping’s predicted rapture, the preparedness guide is a tongue-in-cheek plan. Its message boils down to the idea that if you’re ready for a zombie apocalypse, you’re ready for any more likely crisis or disaster. The CDC website received 2 million page views the first week as a result, and the guide went viral.

The CDC has also recently partnered with AMC’s zombie drama “The Walking Dead” — based on Robert Kirkman’s comic book series — to utilize clips from the TV show and add helpful tips such as, “Clean water is zombie-free water.”

Apparently, according to TV Land, another tip to survive the zombie apocalypse is to not work at the CDC, which may have been the last hope for humanity in “The Walking Dead,” and went kablooey in a giant explosion at the end of Season One.

Khan reminded us, however, that the real deal is “alive and well” and that even in any scenario where the CDC would be blown up, they would have “contingency plans” to make sure they’re still addressing public health — which might be a subtle way of suggesting the government agency has a way cooler underground bunker than we originally thought.

Still, being prepared for a zombie uprising isn’t the same as surviving, and thriving, in one.

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USU professor uses zombie apocalypse to teach math and biology

http://www.standard.net/stories/2012/02/22/usu-professor-uses-zombie-apocalypse-teach-math-and-biology

By Nancy Van Valkenburg
Standard-Examiner staff
Thu, 02/23/2012 – 5:55am

If a zombie apocalypse hit Cache County, 70 percent of the population would be devoured or infected within seven to 10 days.

The contamination and death toll would climb much faster in Weber County, and faster still in Davis. In the more rural counties of Morgan and Box Elder, the end would come much more slowly, because of the increased distances “the walkers” would have to walk.

So says James Powell, who teaches both math and biology at Utah State University, and who for years has used diseases from the headlines to teach his students how to chart the pace at which real epidemics spread.

“I think it’s nice to be topical,” said Powell, who on Friday in Logan will give an all-age workshop, “Mathematics and the Life-Impaired: How the Theory of Disease Predicts the Zombie Apocalypse.”

“Over the years, I have had my students chart H1N1, and before that there was a rabies outbreak, and years before that we talked about the number of new AIDS cases worldwide. We’ve charted other diseases and the maximum growth rate, and how much death we should expect.”

Powell said he is a lifelong science fiction fan.

“I’ve been watching science fiction movies since I was a rodent,” by which he meant small child. “When I started searching for zombie material on the Web, I was stunned by how much stuff there was out there. There’s a kind of zombie chic.”

AMC’s “The Walking Dead” has birthed a new generation of fans, but Powell’s interest dates back to the first time he saw the 1968 horror classic “Night of the Living Dead.” In between, zombie blockbusters have included “28 Days Later,” “I am Legend” and “Zombieland,” to name just a few.

But some films had slow zombies, and some had speedy ones. Some films had living dead that worked well with others of their kind, and some films had zombies that seemed oblivious to everyone who was not a potential entree.

Powell hit on his parameters when he discovered students on the USU campus who play Humans vs. Zombies, a live-action game played on many campuses since it was created in 2005 at Maryland’s Goucher College.

The game begins with a limited number of “zombies” and many more humans, all wearing armbands to mark them as players. Zombies multiply by “tagging” humans, and humans can fend off zombies with Nerf guns, marshmallow guns, rolled up socks, or whatever non-harmful weapon is agreed upon.

“Zombies starve if they don’t feed frequently enough, and humans can defend themselves,” Powell said of the game’s rules. “And here, part of the way they organized the game is that humans have cards, and when a zombie gets you, he gets your card, so they can keep track of the numbers. So they had all this data already collected,” Powell said.

Powell worked from the game’s website, http://www.humansvszombies, to determine his zombie rules. Then, factoring zombie behavior, USU Human vs. Zombie “mortality” rates, and the number of humans in Cache County, he determined 70 percent of humans would be dead in seven to 10 days, then more zombies would begin to starve, taking them out of the equation as well.

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