Web game predicts epidemic spread

This has nothing to do with CME, but I thought it was fascinating: HomeWeb game provides breakthrough in predicting spread of epidemics.

Using a popular internet game that traces the travels of dollar bills, scientists have unveiled statistical laws of human travel in the United States, and developed a mathematical description that can be used to model the spread of infectious disease in this country. This model is considered a breakthrough in the field.





"We were confident that we could learn a lot from the data collected at the www.wheresgeorge.com bill-tracking website, but the results turned out far beyond our expectations," said Lars Hufnagel, a post-doctoral fellow at the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics at the University of California, Santa Barbara and co-author of an article describing the research in the January 26 issue of the journal Nature.

Bird flu was in the news again last night, freaking me out once again. So, if this works, that'd be great. In the meantime, are you prepared?