http://cache.io9.com/assets/base/img/thumbs140x140/io9.com.png http://io9.com/tag/influenza http://io9.com/tag/influenza When you ask someone to name a friend of theirs, the person they name is almost always more popular than themselves. It's called the friendship paradox. But the cool kids with thousands of Facebook friends may find a major downside to their popularity. They're likely to get sick far quicker in an epidemic. During the 2009 flu season, researchers at Harvard compared a random sampling 319 students to 425 of their more popular friends, and the latter group got sick two weeks before the control, and a whopping 46 days before the epidemic peaked. More »
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Looking toward the worst case scenario for the swine flu pandemic, virologists in Lyon are attempting to create a virus as contagious as swine flu and as deadly as avian flu. Is it time to call in Bruce Willis yet? More »
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Google doesn't just help you find the nearest pizza place anymore - now it helps doctors find where flu epidemics are going to strike next. Working with a group of epidemiologists, the tech megacorp has revealed a new system for tracking disease outbreaks by checking what people are searching for. By tracking the rise in searches on phrases like "cold/flu remedy," Google said yesterday in a Nature article that it can predict with almost total accuracy where flu outbreaks are occurring, far more quickly than the American Centers for Disease Control can. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5094627&view=rss&microfeed=true Epidemiologist Rene Najera from the Maryland Department of Health wrote to remind io9 readers to get their flu shots now. Don't be a part of the next pandemic! Also, if you're in Maryland, you can help researchers by participating in this cool flu tracker program online. More »
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