Monday 31 October 2011

Co-existence of humans and vampires scientifically proved

Happy Halloween everyone!

So, what are your plans for tonight? Go out to a part costume party with friends? Do trick-or-treat in your neighbourhood? Whatever you are up to, be careful – you might run into a vampire! And we are not talking about this colleague in a Dracula costume (oh, we love those fake fluorescent plastic fangs). We mean a REAL vampire.

The thing is science cannot prove the existence of vampires but it also cannot deny it. As we show in our paper, under certain provisions and assumptions, the co-existence of humans and vampires might, after all, be a reality.

Remember our quiz from the first blog entry? Who, to your opinion, described the co-existence of humans and vampires in the most accurate way? We listed the following options:a) Bram Stoker b) Stephen King c) Stephanie Meyer d) Charlaine Harris

And the correct answer is: both c) and d) are correct!

In our paper we show this on the example of what we call “the Harris-Meyer-Kostova model” (based on Charlaine Harris’s “Southern Vampire Series”, Stephanie Meyer’s “Twilight saga” and Elizabeth Kostova’s “The Historian”). The model allows for the peaceful (and totally unnoticeable) existence of vampires in our world. However, the system is very fragile and some coordination is required to keep things in balance.
Stephanie Meyer’s “Twilight series”, Charlaine Harris’s “Sookie Stockhouse (Southern Vampire) series”, “True Blood” (TV series) and Elizabeth Kostova’s “The Historian” show the world where vampires peacefully co-exist with humans.

In Stephanie Meyer’s “Twilight series” vampires can tolerate the sunlight, interact with humans (even fall in love with them) and drink animals’ blood to survive. Of course, they have to live in secrecy and pretend to be human beings.
In “Southern Vampire (Sookie Stackhouse) Series” (and the TV series “True Blood” which is based on it), however, a world is shown where vampires and humans live side-by-side and are aware of each other. Vampires can buy synthetic blood of different blood types that is sold in bottles and can be bought in every grocery store, bar or gas station. They cannot walk during daytime, so they usually come out at night. Humans also find use of vampires’ essence – vampires’ blood (called “V”) is a powerful hallucinogenic drug that is sought by humans and traded on the black market (sometimes humans capture vampires with the help of silver chains or harnesses and then kill them by draining their blood). Some humans seek sex with vampires (vampires are stronger and faster than humans and can provide superb erotic experience). There is a possibility to turn a human being into a vampire, but it takes time and effort.
In Elizabeth Kostova’s novel “The Historian”, vampires are rare although real and do not reveal themselves to humans too often. Their food ratios are limited and they spend lots of time brooding in their well-hidden tombs.
In addition, “Sookie Stackhouse (Southern Vampire) Series” by Charlaine Harris comes with an interesting concept of vampires “coming out” in the 2000s: vampires have ultimately decided to reveal themselves to humans (a concept totally unacceptable in the works of Stephanie Meyer) and co-exist with them peacefully exerting their citizens’ rights. Let us show you really quick how the co-existence of humans and vampires works in our model.

Assume that at the time of the events described in the first book of the series, “Dead Until Dark” (2001), the world’s vampire hypothetical population was around five million (the population of the state of Louisiana in 2001). The initial conditions of the Harris-Meyer-Kostova model are the following: five million vampires, 6 159 million people, there are organized groups of vampire “drainers”.
Our calculations show that the human population will be growing until 2046 when it reaches its peak of 9.6 billion people, whereupon it will be declining until 2065 until it reaches its bottom at 6.12 billion people. This process will repeat itself continuously. The vampire population will be declining until 2023 when it reaches its minimum of 289 thousand vampires, whereupon it will be growing until 2055 until it reaches its peak at 397 million vampires. This process will also repeat itself continuously. Therefore, under certain conditions, the Harris-Meyer-Kostova model seems plausible and allows for the existence of vampires in our world. Co-existence of two spices is a reality. However, this symbiosis is very fragile and whenever the growth rate of human population slows down, the blood thirst of vampires accelerates, or vampire drainers become too greedy, the whole system lies in ruins with just one population remaining.

Well, do you believe now that vampires MIGHT exist? Even if you still do not, watch out anyways – it is Halloween tonight.

Nosferatu



Probably the first (and the most famous) vampire movie was called "Nosferatu".

Shot in 1922 in Orava castle (in what is now Slovakia), the movie set the highest standard for horror movies. Silent and expressionist, the movie became an inspiration for many writers, film makers and musicians. Watch this short music video (which basically summarizes the whole "Nosferatu" plot under 5 minutes):

Happy Halloween!