Washington Post: On his Facebook page, US Energy Secretary and Nobel Prizewinning physicist Steven Chu posted a picture of himself dressed as a zombie. His goal was to point out that computers, TVs, and other electrical appliances consume electricity even when turned off—as if, like zombies and vampires, they belong to the ranks of the living dead. Entitled “Slaying Energy Vampires,” Chu’s Facebook warning about power-sucking appliances begins:
Someone on my staff forwarded this photo from the website Make Me Zombie which shows what I’d look like as a member of the undead. As a lifelong geek, I’ve never had such a cool Halloween costume. To date, there is no scientific evidence about the existence of Zombies, but what about vampires?
Modeling the shapes of tree branches, neurons, and blood vessels is a thorny problem, but researchers have just discovered that much of the math has already been done.
