In testing the spread of the avian flu virus, a team of researchers have designed a new interactive map with the help of Google Earth.
Using a special XML-based mark-up language (known as Keyhole Mark-up Language) in Google Earth, biomedical researchers from Ohio State University have modelled a super-map using various colours and symbols to indicate a range of variables, such as the hosts that carry the virus and where they reside in the globe. Incorporating this information with TimeSpan, another KML Google Earth function, the researchers have been able to animate the spread of the virus over the past ten years.
Daniel Janies, assistant professor in the department of biomedical informatics and project leader, feels that this map redefines the possibilities of predicting the scale and impact of viruses like H5N1 or bird flu. He commented:
"[The map] has enabled us to compare findings about viruses in the real world against pre-existing hypotheses about the spread of H5N1 that come from laboratory studies."
To produce the map, the researchers studied genetic data from 351 different isolates of the virus, aiming to discover whether certain hosts were carrying specific forms of the virus and which viruses carry the mutations that make the virus transmissible to humans.
In creating the virus tracking map, the team have intended to make the technology accessible to a wide range of diseases that could benefit science in predicting the spread and scale of other infectious viruses.
Google Earth was released in 2005, a project that was originally known as Earth Viewer, and is designed to map the earth by the superimposition of images obtained from satellite imagery and aerial photography. Open to all commercial, personal and education users, it has been used in a number of projects to track and visualise not only viruses, but airplane paths, real estate and even a visible shipwreck collection.
