Philip Munz, et al:

Zombies are a popular figure in pop culture/entertainment and they are usually portrayed as being brought about through an outbreak or epidemic. Consequently, we model a zombie attack, using biological assumptions based on popular zombie movies. We introduce a basic model for zombie infection, determine equilibria and their stability, and illustrate the outcome with numerical solutions. We then refine the model to introduce a latent period of zombification, whereby humans are infected, but not infectious, before becoming undead. We then modify the model to include the effects of possible quarantine or a cure. Finally, we examine the impact of regular, impulsive reductions in the number of zombies and derive conditions under which eradication can occur. We show that only quick, aggressive attacks can stave off the doomsday scenario: the collapse of society as zombies overtake us all.

Nanochick:

I hope to see more of this type of thing ... taking literature and "livening" it up a bit with some zombie action!!

Dateline Austin, Texas:

If you're driving in Austin, you can rest assured: There are no zombies ahead.

Really?

Like a lot of monsters, zombies have their roots in folklore and -- according to some researchers -- in real events in Haiti.

From the archive:

We should probably tell you that the full title of this game is Zombies! Apocalypse - Massive Multiplayer Online Zombies Massacre, even though that's basically given away the point of it all.

When Zombies Attack!: Mathematical Modeling of an Outbreak of Zombie Infection

Decius, from yesterday:

Hold on to your hats.

Yves Smith:

I don't believe in market calls, and trying to time turns is a perilous game. But most savvy people I know have been skeptical of this rally, beyond the initial strong bounce off the bottom. It has not had the characteristics of a bull market. In addition, this one has had some troubling features. Most notable has been the almost insistent media cheerleading, particularly from atypical venues for that sort of thing, like Bloomberg.

Amy Miller Bohn:

Because of the increase in degree of difficulty in cheerleading skills, increased acrobatics and stunt activities may be increasing the risk of severity of injury.

There are often no supportive surfaces to shield them from falls.

Participants also lack adequate supervision. If an adequately trained coach is not present to ensure participants are using proper techniques and make sure spotters are placed where they should, injuries may occur.

What can be done to help prevent injuries?

A spring loaded floor is a good idea to prevent injuries and to cushion a fall. Mats are also important.

Dateline Texas, from a few years ago:

Texas is famous for its Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders, who perform in high boots and low-cut tops.

Some lawmakers have expressed outrage at similarly suggestive performances at local schools across the state.

"Some of them are just downright vulgar."

"You've got children seeing things that their parents would rather them not see."

From Wikipedia last year, courtesy of Palindrome:

Radical cheerleading is a form of cheerleading that originated in Florida, but has now spread across the United States as well as Canada, Europe and beyond. The idea is to ironically reappropriate the aesthetics of cheerleading, for example by changing the chants to promote feminism and left-wing causes. Many radical cheerleaders are in appearance far from the stereotypical image of a cheerleader.

D. Graham Burnett and Jeffrey Andrew Dolven:

Irony is a powerful and incompletely understood feature of human dynamics. A technique for dissimulation and "secret speech," irony is considerably more complex than lying and even more dangerous.

A quick dip into the infinite summer:

"The truth is nobody can always tell, Boo. Some t... [ Read More (0.3k in body) ]

Jamie Hogan:

I'm an engineer, and if one genius bear can do it, sooner or later there might be two genius bears.

Elizabeth Gilbert:

Instead of the rare person "being" a genius, all of us "have" a genius.

Two from the archive:

A black bear was found passed out at a campground in Washington state recently after guzzling down three dozen cans of a local beer, a campground worker said on Wednesday.

Homer: Not a bear in sight. The "Bear Patrol" is working like a charm!
Lisa: That's specious reasoning, Dad.
Homer: [uncomprehendingly] Thanks, honey.

Smarter Than Your Average Bear

The American Time Use Survey asks thousands of American residents to recall every minute of a day. Here is how people over age 15 spent their time in 2008.

Explore the differences among the animated tabs.

Paul Graham:

You can't write or program well in units of an hour. That's barely enough time to get started.

Nir Rosen:

"You Westerners have your watches," the leader observed. "But we Taliban have time."

Pico Iyer:

It seems that happiness, like peace or passion, comes most freely when it isn't pursued.

I have no bicycle, no car, no television I can understand, no media -- and the days seem to stretch into eternities, and I can't think of a single thing I lack.

Curtis White:

Perhaps the most powerful way in which we conspire against ourselves is the simple fact that we have jobs.

Zak Ryman:

I think a lot of people don't have time to Twitter.

It just takes too long to compose a message with 140 characters, and then you start getting bombarded by a few tweets and it's like, hundreds of characters that you have to read.

How Different Groups Spend Their Day

George Dyson:

Approaching Beverly Hills along Sunset Boulevard from Santa Monica, the first indications that you are nearing the destination are people encamped at the side of the road announcing "Star Maps" for sale. Beverly Hills is a surprisingly diverse community of interwoven lives, families, and livelihoods, and a Star Map offers only a rough approximation of where a few select people have their homes.

Synthetic Genomics is still at the Star Map stage. But it is becoming Google Earth much faster than most people think.

Raymond Chandler, in 1949:

Los Angeles was just a big dry sunny place with ugly homes and no style, but good-hearted and peaceful. It had the climate they yap about now. People used to sleep out on porches. Little groups who thought they were intellectual used to call it the Athens of America.

Freeman Dyson:

Now, after some three billion years, the Darwinian era is over.

From the archive:

Oh! I feel it. I feel the cosmos!

From The World in 2009:

Someone once accused Craig Venter of playing God.

His reply was, "We're not playing."

Martin Schwartz:

Science makes me feel stupid too. It's just that I've gotten used to it.

Edge Master Class 2009

Brought to you by the Department of Labor:

Reading: $118
"Entertainment": $2,698

John Lanchester:

If I had to name one high-cultural notion that had died in my adult lifetime, it would be the idea that difficulty is artistically desirable.

Motoko Rich:

As teenagers' scores on standardized reading tests have declined or stagnated, some argue that the hours spent prowling the Internet are the enemy of reading -- diminishing literacy, wrecking attention spans and destroying a precious common culture that exists only through the reading of books.

But others say the Internet has created a new kind of reading, one that schools and society should not discount.

How The Average U.S. Consumer Spends Their Annual Paycheck

This is a collection of e-mails I have sent to people who post classified ads.

My goal is to mess with them, confuse them, and/or piss them off.

These are the ones that succeeded.

Richard Hamming:

If you do not work on an important problem, it's unlikely you'll do important work.

Samantha Power:

There are great benefits to connectedness, but we haven't wrapped our minds around the costs.

E-mails from an Asshole

Barry Ritholtz:

Imagine two people who added $10,000 to their investment accounts on January 1st, every year for the past 15 years.

One of them is risk averse. They put the money into Certificates of Deposits, getting a few percentage points each year, but the principal is insured.

The other is less risk averse; they put money into an S&P500 Index each year.

Who comes out ahead? The answer might surprise you.

Niall Ferguson:

A man who decided to put his savings into gold in 1970 could have bought just over 27.8 ounces of the precious metal for $1,000. At the time of writing, with gold trading at $900 an ounce, he could have sold it for around $25,000.

From Tarantino:

If my answers frighten you, then you should cease asking scary questions.

S&P500 vs CDs (1994-2008)

Jon Gertner:

This is a story not about Amtrak but about trains, and the problem with any story about trains in America is that you often find yourself thinking about Amtrak, and you often find yourself thinking about how nice it would be if you weren't thinking about Amtrak. This is especially true when you're actually riding on Amtrak.

You see:

That's not grime you're seeing, it's historical charm.

J.M. Harper:

This is not my home.

Also in the archive:

Train Runs Through Bangkok Market

Model Railroad Slums

Getting Up to Speed

Caitlin Flanagan:

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported in May that births to unmarried women have reached an astonishing 39.7%.

How much does this matter? More than words can say.

Nora Johnson:

In our unending search for panaceas, we believe that happiness and "success" -- which, loosely translated, means money -- are the things to strive for. People are constantly surprised that, even though they have acquired material things, discontent still gnaws.

Have you seen "Revolutionary Road"?

Hopeless emptiness. Now you've said it. Plenty of people are onto the emptiness, but it takes real guts to see the hopelessness.

Is There Hope for the American Marriage?