BIOS: Technology Means Business

Some clever person has created an unofficial 'add-on' for Google's excellent mapping software that allows you to view information on avian influenza outbreaks by location on a global map within the Google Earth geographical information system browser.

Someone called 'purplelinny' at the Google Earth Community has been collecting information on the spread of avian influenza around the world. She cites her references in the thread and has been in contact with a journalist at Nature who has been researching this as well.

You can download the Google Earth file and you will see the placemarks with unique icons indicating 'confirmed', 'unconfirmed', or human verses animal or bird cases. If you look in the Places window and open her folder (called H5N1 after the name of the flu strain), you will see it is organised according to the different types and other useful information about the flu.

Avian influenza (bird flu) is an infection caused by avian (bird) influenza (flu) viruses. These flu viruses occur naturally among birds. Wild birds worldwide carry the viruses in their intestines, but usually do not get sick from them. However, bird flu is very contagious among birds and can make some domesticated birds, including chickens, ducks, and turkeys, very sick and kill them. Bird flu viruses do not usually infect humans, but several cases of human infection with bird flu viruses have occurred since 1997.

Google Earth combines satellite imagery, maps and the power of Google Search to put the world's geographic information at your fingertips. Now you can update the service by viewing major recent avian flu outbreaks. You can zoom across the globe to see where each site sits in relation to others by clicking on the locations.

Note that for the moment Google Earth runs only on PCs and not on Macs. It also requires you to have high Internet bandwidth to handle the satellite images. The bird flu add-on can be downloaded here. Google Earth can be downloaded .