On This Week in Virology episode #9, Vincent and Dick recall the discovery of Lassa virus in Africa in 1969. A non-fictional account of the story, ‘Fever’, written by John G. Fuller and published in 1974, inspired Vincent to become a virologist. Part of the story took place at Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital (now Columbia University Medical …
The article which describes the use of search engine data to predict influenza epidemics, discussed previously on this blog, was published today in the journal Nature. The title of the article is “Detecting influenza epidemics using search engine query data”, and the abstract can be found here.
It was bound to happen: a few days after announcing its flu trends service, Google is under fire from advocacy groups which claim their information gathering violates user privacy. The NY Times has the story today. Google flu isn’t new: it uses search data in the same way that it has been used from the …
This Week in Virology #8 has been posted at www.microbe.tv/twiv. <span data-mce-type=”bookmark” style=”display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;” class=”mce_SELRES_start”></span><span data-mce-type=”bookmark” style=”display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;” class=”mce_SELRES_start”></span>&lt;span data-mce-type=”bookmark” style=”display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;” class=”mce_SELRES_start”&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&amp;lt;span data-mce-type=”bookmark” style=”display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;” class=”mce_SELRES_start”&amp;gt;&amp;lt;/span&amp;gt;&amp;amp;lt;span data-mce-type=”bookmark” style=”display: inline-block; width: …
TWiV #8 – HIV resistance, Google flu, measles in Gibraltar, viral batteries Read More »
On episode #3 of “This Week in Virology”, published on 2 October 2008, we talked about how the mortgage crisis is leading to abandoned swimming pools and an increase in infestation with mosquitoes that carry West Nile virus. Yesterday, the NY Times published a short article in the Science Times section entitled “First, Abandoned Pools, …
There is an article on Dengue in the NY Times this week. It’s short on science, but brings home the impact of the disease (which is rare in the US and Europe) in developing countries. The article focuses on the disease in Bangkok, where the United States Army maintains its largest overseas research laboratory. The …
