Zombies

Civilisation would most likely be finished in the event of a zombie outbreak, claim Canadian mathematicians who have calculated the possible devastation caused by an attack by the fictional monsters.

Using models developed to calculate the effects of more plausible pandemics, the team from the University of Ottawa have discovered that unless man struck back quickly and aggressively then they would be doomed.

The scientific paper, which is published in a book 'Infectious Diseases Modelling Research Progress', looks at an attack by the undead creatures, who infect the living with a bite.

In their study, titled 'When Zombies Attack!', the researchers picked “classic” slow-moving zombies such as those in Dawn of the Dead as models and divided humanity into three: the living, zombies and the “removed” – zombies who had been killed by decapitation.