The Argus: fringe_2011_logo_red_thumb“There hasn’t been a zombie apocalypse so far, which makes it more likely there will be one tomorrow. We have to be prepared.”

So says the University Of Glasgow’s resident zombiologist Dr Austin, from the Zombie Institute for Theoretical Studies (ZITS) who is bringing his lecture on zombie science to Brighton for three nights.

Supported by the Wellcome Trust – which improved the faculty’s budget “from nothing to something” – and the university – “they thought they had shut us down ten years ago” – Dr Austin has been taking the true science behind zombies to comedy festivals and schools across the country.

“This show is aboutwhat zombies might really be like, and dispelling a lot of the misinformation spread by movies,” he says.

The lecture is divided into three sections – what a zombie is, how people might become them, and how to prevent or cure zombie symptoms.

“We use the George A Romero symptoms of zombieism – slow moving eaters of human flesh – and look at which are actually possible,” says Dr Austin.

“Rage zombies are unlikely – there are very few diseases you could get where you could run faster or not feel pain. In fact, people with a congenitive insensitivity to pain tend to get illnesses that they don’t realise they are getting.”

Although traditionally nuclear radiation has been linked to zombieism, Dr Austin believes zombie symptoms are more likely to be caused by a prion disease.

“Radiation sickness doesn’t produce symptoms similar to a zombie,” he says. “It’s usually nausea, vomiting and death.

“Different viruses are always coming along – there’s a chance with advances in genetics scientists could create designer viruses to turn people into zombies.

“But the most likely method is a prion disease – the most famous is Mad Cow Disease. They are like a virus, but we don’t understand much about them and how they affect people.

“There was a prion disease in Papua New Guinea called kuru which had some of the symptoms youwould find in a zombie, although biting didn’t play any part with that.

“It’s more likely it was caused by ingesting a contaminated animal food source, like the burgers blamed for Mad Cow Disease.”

Science is important when it comes to battling zombies, from knowing whether or not to cut off a bitten limb, to keeping the brain splattering to a minimum initially.

“If you bashed your granny’s head in, and then found out the next day there was a cure, how would you explain it? It would be so embarrassing,” he says.

“If you’re going to kill a zombie you need to destroy the brain. If you set one on fire it could take three to five hours for the flames to overcome them, by which time everything would be on fire.”

The lecture includes a demonstration of an improvised projectile weapon should the worst happen, as well as several video experiments filmed with the fearsome Davey The Janitor standing in for the undead.

“I have been talking to people at the Manchester Metropolitan University about future shows on vampirism, alienology or lycanthropy [werewolves],” says Dr Austin.

“I don’t think we’d be able to explain Twilight – there’s no science behind that, other than possibly teenage girls’ interest in boys...”

* 8pm, £6/£5, 01273 917272