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Physicists Prove That Vampires Could Not Exist
What Do You Look For In Science Fiction?


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Not entire sure how they planned to feed the humans to keep them going, however. Clearly, this was a project still in its beta phase. As soon as the Master figures out this small issue, he'll probably get bought out by Google or News Corporation.
05/05/09
That throws the scientist's math into the dumper!
05/06/09
Partly that's because Bram Stoker's vampirism worked that way, but the "bitten = vampire" thing probably came from all the B-grade vampire movies.
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Periods of growth are offset by massive losses that thin the ranks and preserve the food-to-vamp ratio.
They could at times kill each other off when faced with shortages, or suffer major losses to infection, like Bubonic Plague, Ebola, or AIDS.
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Of course, undead creatures are by definition unnatural, so this may not still apply- the rate at which vampires are able to reproduce (does every victim become a vampire? just a random few? does it require an intentional act on the part of the parent?), the rate at which they die off (are they immortal, just long lived, or actually have the same lifespan as humans? can they die of starvation? do they regularly kill each other in internal conflicts? are there human hunters? do they die from accidental sunlight exposure?), and the amount of food they require (do they need to kill when they feed, or just harvest a pint? do they need to feed every night, every week, or even every month?) are all variables that drastically affect the equation. Since they aren't real, all of these variables are arbitrary, making the entire discussion rather wanky and meaningless, unless you're specifically trying to calculate the realistic viability of a particular fictional "species" of vampire.
05/05/09
1) Why assume a vampire has to kill a human everytime it feeds (Stoker's dracula had wan listless victims living for days/weeks/months(?) after becoming vampire takeout.
2) What rate of vampire 'reproduction' are they using in their model? Most vampire stories don't have every human killed by vampire attack turing into vampires - vampires (generally) choose who they want to make into vampires and it's only a very small% of their meals.
3) the whole 'natural' death/unlife expectancy issue
As noted, it's all makebelieve so pretending the variables are accurate is silly, but these factors would drastically effect the projections of the original researchers. I can't believe any respected peer reviewed journal would let such shoddy unsupported work get published.
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05/07/09
If only there were responsible regulation of the blood banking sector, but vampire's generally anti-social nature prevented it.
05/07/09
Yet another example of the academic establishment's unreasoning discrimination against our lycanthropic-challenged citizens.
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It's for fun. They probably do this down the pub on a Friday for laughs.
05/05/09
Thought Experiments = Serious Business.
Oh yeah, and those poor, poor trees this article was wasted on (forget about tree farms). Oh and the internet cache on all the machines which have read about this has gone to waste! Oh the horrors!
05/05/09
Seems like you have narrow view. Do all research papers have to be boring as fuck?