The Walking Dead
The Walking Dead series four AMC

Chemists in the US have come up with a way for people to survive a zombie apocalypse, if and when the living dead rise to consume human flesh.

To mark the end of The Walking Dead season four, the American Chemical Society has shown how people can survive a zombie apocalypse armed with science instead of weapons.

In the AMC series, zombies are attracted to the smell of live human flesh. To combat this issue, chemist Raychelle Burks developed a perfume that accurately mimics the smell of a rotting corpse, thereby tricking the zombie into thinking you are already dead.

"For all the doomsdayers out there it's not a question of whether a zombie apocalypse is going to happen – it's when," the film says.

"Hopefully all you viewers will have started making preparations. But there's actually a better way than stockpiling guns, swords and explosives. As it turns out, science might be the key to your survival.

"If the real zombie apocalypse is anything like the TV show the Walking Dead, zombies love the smell of live humans. But if you smell like a rotting corpse they would probably pass you on for shall we say a fresher meal. Using chemicals to mimic the smell of rotting corpses Burkes may be on to something big with her death scented zombie repellent cologne."

The Walking Dead
Zombies in The Walking Dead can smell human flesh. AMC

Explaining how she developed her Death Cologne, Burks said: "We know a lot of the chemicals that are responsible for that decaying rotting smell. Two of them have perfect names that reflect the smell that they unleash when we are exposed to them. One is called putrescine and one is called cadaverine. They are really small polyamines and we produce them early in the decomposition process.

"But maybe if we really want to round out that death smell for our cologne we will want to add methanethiol because it's got that rotten egg boiled cabbage smell.

"All of these are actually incredibly stinky at very low quantitates. We're talking parts per billion. This is good because we won't have to make a whole lot to save a whole lot of people."

Burks said researchers can modify E.coli so it contains all three smells, but that there is still work to do to ensure our survival from the zombies: "If we're really trying to mimic a corpse, and use this walking death method, we have got to get the smell down to perfection," she said.

The Walking Dead season four is available to watch live online through AMC's website.