Scientists from the Los Alamos National Laboratory decided to take a look at Wikipedia search data in order to see if they could predict outbreaks of infectious diseases.
They chose to focus on seven diseases (Ebola, cholera, dengue fever, HIV/AIDS, influenza, plague, and tuberculosis) in nine countries (Brazil, China, the United States, Haiti, Japan, Norway, Thailand, Poland, and Uganda), and came up with models for 14 "location-disease contexts," the Los Angeles Times reports. Wikipedia collects data on the millions of search requests it gets daily, and researchers used data from March 2010 to February 2014. They also used official disease incidence reports to determine if the searches predicted an outbreak.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Writing in the journal PLOS Computational Biology, the researchers stated that this Wikipedia-based approach "is sufficiently promising to explore in more detail."
-
Interpol arrests hundreds in Africa-wide cybercrime crackdownIN THE SPOTLIGHT A series of stings disrupts major cybercrime operations as law enforcement estimates millions in losses from schemes designed to prey on lonely users
-
How to ditch ‘buy now, pay later’ debtthe explainer Recent changes mean BNPL will soon affect your credit score
-
Why Trump is so focused on getting a Nobel Peace PrizeThe Explainer A recent poll found that three-quarters of Americans say Trump doesn’t deserve the award
-
SpaceX breaks Starship losing streak in 10th testspeed read The Starship rocket's test flight was largely successful, deploying eight dummy satellites during its hour in space
-
Rabbits with 'horns' sighted across Coloradospeed read These creatures are infected with the 'mostly harmless' Shope papilloma virus
-
Lithium shows promise in Alzheimer's studySpeed Read Potential new treatments could use small amounts of the common metal
-
Scientists discover cause of massive sea star die-offSpeed Read A bacteria related to cholera has been found responsible for the deaths of more than 5 billion sea stars
-
'Thriving' ecosystem found 30,000 feet underseaSpeed Read Researchers discovered communities of creatures living in frigid, pitch-black waters under high pressure
-
New York plans first nuclear plant in 36 yearsSpeed Read The plant, to be constructed somewhere in upstate New York, will produce enough energy to power a million homes
-
Dehorning rhinos sharply cuts poaching, study findsSpeed Read The painless procedure may be an effective way to reduce the widespread poaching of rhinoceroses
-
Breakthrough gene-editing treatment saves babyspeed read KJ Muldoon was healed from a rare genetic condition
