November 10, 2016 5:20 pm

Friday, Neil Tyson Explores the “Science” of Zombies and the Walking Dead

Photo of Hannah, aka “Bicycle Girl Zombie” – the first walker encountered by Rick Grimes in Episode 1, Season 1 of “The Walking Dead.” Credit: AMC.

Image credit: AMC.

We’ve covered zombies before. In fact, for Halloween, we just posted an extended classic version of our first journey into undead territory: Zombie Apocalypse Part 1.

In that episode, Neil deGrasse Tyson’s zombie guide was Max Broooks, author of World War Z. This time around, our guide is none other than Robert Kirkman, creator and executive producer of The Walking Dead.

Of course, because this is StarTalk, this episode isn’t just about zombies – we’re here to find out what we can learn about the real world by looking at the fake one.

In both Part 1 and Part 2 of  Zombie Apocalypse, we looked at zombies as a metaphor for viral outbreaks, and we brought in epidemiologist Dr. Ian Lipkin and Pulitzer-prize winning science journalist Laurie Garrett.

This time around, Neil and co-host Maeve Higgins are looking at zombies in terms of anthropological, sociological and biological issues.

We’ve got professor Jeffrey Mantz, the Cultural Anthropology Program Director and Human Subjects Research Officer at the National Science Foundation. We’ve got Steven Schlozman, MD, an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and the author of The Zombie Autopsies. Even fan favorite data journalist Mona Chalabi stops by to explain mathematician Robert Smith?’s zombie outbreak model, which shows why fighting a zombie outbreak is an uphill battle.

Plus, Chuck Nice takes it to the streets to find out how people plan to survive should the dead inexplicably begin to rise, and Bill Nye compares the smallpox epidemic to a fictional zombie apocalypse to reassure us that science will save us.

Join us for The “Science” of Zombies and the Walking Dead, with Robert Kirkman at 7pm EST right here on our website, or on iTunesPodcasts, Google Play Music, SoundCloud, Stitcher and TuneIn.

All-Access subscribers can listen to this episode ad-free (no video for this one), along with Neil’s extended interview with Robert Kirkman.

That’s it for now. Keep Looking Up!
–Jeffrey Simons

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