Health Briefs
Issue date: 11/18/08 Section: Health
Google tool tracks flu spread
An Internet search tool could be helpful in tracking the spread of influenza cases in the US and act as an early warning of an outbreak, according to an expert at the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC).
Google Flu Trends will analyze patterns based on how often people search for flu-related terms and plot their locations in near real time, the company said.
"The data are really, really timely. They were able to tell us on a day-to-day basis the relative direction of flu activity for a given area. They were about a week ahead of us. They could be used as an early warning signal for flu activity."
The early warning could help hospitals prepare for a surge in patients during flu season, as well as track flu activity in case of a pandemic.
Results from the free, web-based method will be shared with the CDC, but individual user data will be kept confidential, Google software engineers Jeremy Ginsberg and Matt Mohebbi said in the company's blog.
What's really in your fast food?
You may want to reconsider getting that double cheeseburger with fries.
A study released in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences contains controversial claims about menu items served at McDonald's, Wendy's and Burger King.
Using a technique that identifies carbon and nitrogen isotopes in meat, co-authors A. Hope Jahren and Rebecca Kraft tried to determine the animals' diets and in what conditions they were raised.
Based on the high levels of carbon and nitrogen isotopes found in the meat products, the authors claim that the cattle and poultry were predominantly fed corn, which makes them as fat as possible in as short a time as possible, and were raised in extreme confinement.
An Internet search tool could be helpful in tracking the spread of influenza cases in the US and act as an early warning of an outbreak, according to an expert at the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC).
Google Flu Trends will analyze patterns based on how often people search for flu-related terms and plot their locations in near real time, the company said.
"The data are really, really timely. They were able to tell us on a day-to-day basis the relative direction of flu activity for a given area. They were about a week ahead of us. They could be used as an early warning signal for flu activity."
The early warning could help hospitals prepare for a surge in patients during flu season, as well as track flu activity in case of a pandemic.
Results from the free, web-based method will be shared with the CDC, but individual user data will be kept confidential, Google software engineers Jeremy Ginsberg and Matt Mohebbi said in the company's blog.
What's really in your fast food?
You may want to reconsider getting that double cheeseburger with fries.
A study released in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences contains controversial claims about menu items served at McDonald's, Wendy's and Burger King.
Using a technique that identifies carbon and nitrogen isotopes in meat, co-authors A. Hope Jahren and Rebecca Kraft tried to determine the animals' diets and in what conditions they were raised.
Based on the high levels of carbon and nitrogen isotopes found in the meat products, the authors claim that the cattle and poultry were predominantly fed corn, which makes them as fat as possible in as short a time as possible, and were raised in extreme confinement.
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