A study by students at the University of Leicester in the United Kingdom has found that zombies can wipe-out the human race in as little as 100 days -- that is, if humans do nothing other than allowing these mindless minions to slaughter them like defenseless sheep.

But when humans fight back, which is the more realistic scenario, the outcome changes in a very big way.

Like Us on Facebook

The puzzling popularity of TV shows and movies (mostly American) glorifying zombies or the walking dead has led to a spate of "What ifs" asking if a so-called "zombie apocalypse" is possible.

In February 2015, mathematicians at Cornell University tried to answer the question "Where's the best place on the U.S. mainland to escape the coming Zombie Apocalypse?

These bright boys actually did a complex simulation to answer that question.

They suggest the best place for Americans or anyone else to hide during a hypothetical murderous zombie storm is in the northern part of the Rocky Mountains. That means you've got to go to Montana or further up north into British Columbia in Canada.

Today, a team of University of Leicester students used a basic epidemiological model that describes how a contagious disease spreads through a population to answer the question "How long before a zombie apocalypse wipes out the human race?"

The answer is as frightening as those horrid zombies: 100 days.

The assumptions on which this answer was based is that each zombie is able to find one victim per day; the zombies have a 90 percent chance of infecting that person with the zombie virus and the zombies manage to stay alive for the average zombie lifespan of 20 days.

The model concluded that only a few hundred human survivors out of the total world population of over seven billion persons would be left alive after only 100 days of a zombie apocalypse.

But there's a very big "IF" to this scenario. This outcome depends on humans not fighting back and killing zombies wholesale.

And there is no way any right minded human would just let a zombie kill him without putting up a fight. What are the world's armies and all those weapons of mass destruction for?

The team, however, published a follow-up study that imagines humans fighting back against the zombies.

In this scenario, the students found that the humans' ability to battle the zombies, and to reproduce and repopulate the Earth means humanity will eventually be able to eliminate the zombies and recover.

Tagszombie, zombie apocalypse, University of Leicester, Cornell University, humans, human race