Macs, Google Earth and BBEdit; working to save the planet one pandemic at a time

Ah, how the media loves its buzzwords, and one of the latest that has been bandied about is “pandemic.” We’re not above that here at Appletell, especially when Macs are involved. So, when we were told that Macs are being used to help predict the spread of swine flu, we wanted to find out how.

According to the “International migration and development, Report of the Secretary General,” 2% of the world’s population has moved to a new country in the last few years, possibly carrying infectious diseases with them. “That’s over 200 million people that have moved to a new location. So that means that these infections we’re talking about are global,” said Larry Schlesinger, PhD of the Ohio State University Medical Center. To combat the spread of these diseases, Dr. Schlesinger started and continues to run a center with over 50 scientists dedicated solely to finding and fighting them.

How does the Macintosh come into play? Hoping to stay one step ahead of the spread of swine flu, researchers at the Ohio State University Medical Center are looking to the sky via Macs and Google Earth. These researchers map cases overnight, and even zoom in to street level to tell them who is infected—a tool which was used to track avian flu in 2007. “I could tell you where it came from in the world and what mutations are specific to that lineage such that it can be diagnosed rapidly,” said Dan Janies, PhD of Ohio State University (pictured right). And Dr. Janies’ tool of choice for tracking this data? “We use Macs (to produce Supramap) mostly because of the fact that they have both a nice user interface and a Unix based OS. We work both with graphics (google earth) and command line applications (poy).

“We could not live without BBEdit and the grab utility!”

Of course, diagnosing and tracking the disease won’t cure it, which is why the team at Ohio State is constantly looking for new therapies. “You really don’t eradicate infectious diseases, you just tame them. And they keep re-emerging. And if we’re not smart, they’ll win the battle, not humans,” says Dr. Schlesinger.

Although it’s great to see the stability and speed of the Macintosh getting put to good use on such important work, it’s even more encouraging that the research is being done at all, no matter what tools are being used.