Here is where you would survive a zombie apocalypse the longest, according to science

Zombies
(Image credit: Facebook.com/World War Z)

Head west, Zombie Survivors.

That's the crux of a new paper by a group of Cornell researches, which they presented at the American Physical Society's March meeting. Alex Alemi, a Cornell PhD candidate in physics, built a statistical model of what a "realistic" zombie outbreak would be like:

Image removed.

(Alex Alemi/Cornell University)

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The good news is that those living in underpopulated or remote areas could live zombie-free for years. Their big city counterparts? Not so much.

"New York City would fall in a matter of days, but Ithaca, where I am — it would take weeks for the zombies to make their way up here." Alemi told The Washington Post. "It would be a situation where you're watching chaos on television, but where you are everything would remain unchanged."

Read more about the particulars of our hypothetical zombie outbreak over at The Washington Post.

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Sarah Eberspacher is an associate editor at TheWeek.com. She has previously worked as a sports reporter at The Livingston County Daily Press & Argus and The Arizona Republic. She graduated from Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism.