The creator of the Where’s George? website set out to track the pattern of money distribution in the United States by stamping bills with a note asking the recipient to log the ZIP code where they received the bill. The project, which started more than 10 years ago, has amassed the history of more than 100 million bills.
Researchers at Northwestern University saw this data and immediately recognized its worth for the simulation of the spread of disease. The research team harnessed this data and combined it with details that are known about the spread of swine flu to produce a simulation that closely tracks the reporting of cases.
Read more about the model and methodology in this feature from the New York Times.
