Matrix understanding in Python

[perfringo]

Looping of matrix is simple. Some examples:

>>> m = [[1, 0, 0, 0, 1], 
...      [0, 0, 0, 0, 0], 
...      [0, 1, 0, 0, 0], 
...      [0, 1, 0, 0, 0]]
>>> for row in m: 
...     print(row) 
...                                                                                        
[1, 0, 0, 0, 1]
[0, 0, 0, 0, 0]
[0, 1, 0, 0, 0]
[0, 1, 0, 0, 0]
>>> for col in zip(*m): 
...     print(col) 
...                                                                                        
(1, 0, 0, 0)
(0, 0, 1, 1)
(0, 0, 0, 0)
(0, 0, 0, 0)
(1, 0, 0, 0)  

Your actual problem is how to change values adjacent to zombie values. As this includes next/previous rows you should figure out when to make 'infection' happen.