Scientists use www.wheresgeorge.com to build model of disease spread
From the Washington Times
via fark.com
California scientists using an Internet game that traces the movement of dollar bills have created a model for tracking the spread of infectious diseases.
"We were confident we could learn a lot from the data collected at the www.wheresgeorge.com bill-tracking Web site, but the results turned out far beyond our expectations," said Lars Hufnagel, a postdoctoral fellow at the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics at the University of California-Santa Barbara, and co-author of the study.
Historical pandemics, such as the 14th-century plague, moved slowly since people could typically only travel a few miles daily. It took the plague three years to move up the European continent, with an average rate of spread of about one mile a day.
"But today people move great distances in short time periods, as well as short distances, and they use variable means of transportation," said Hufnagel.
At the Web site, participants register a bill of any denomination and then monitor its geographic circulation. Analyzing data from the game, the scientists developed a theory that represents a major breakthrough for mathematical modeling of the spread of epidemics.
An article describing the research appears in the journal Nature.
via fark.com
California scientists using an Internet game that traces the movement of dollar bills have created a model for tracking the spread of infectious diseases.
"We were confident we could learn a lot from the data collected at the www.wheresgeorge.com bill-tracking Web site, but the results turned out far beyond our expectations," said Lars Hufnagel, a postdoctoral fellow at the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics at the University of California-Santa Barbara, and co-author of the study.
Historical pandemics, such as the 14th-century plague, moved slowly since people could typically only travel a few miles daily. It took the plague three years to move up the European continent, with an average rate of spread of about one mile a day.
"But today people move great distances in short time periods, as well as short distances, and they use variable means of transportation," said Hufnagel.
At the Web site, participants register a bill of any denomination and then monitor its geographic circulation. Analyzing data from the game, the scientists developed a theory that represents a major breakthrough for mathematical modeling of the spread of epidemics.
An article describing the research appears in the journal Nature.
posted by Unknown at 8:41 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home