Another Use Of Our Beloved Google

I've recently read another fascinating benefit of Google. It's about Google Trends, which shows people when a keyword was searched using Google and how much.

Using the Google Trends graphics for the keywords "flu, symptoms etc.", an upcoming epidemic can be detected much faster. While hospital reports are gathered and read and the epidemic is reported, it gets too late. When looked back at the older epidemics, it is easily seen that the keywords about flu are searched much more often a week before the epidemic.

To make this research option more accurate Google added keywords like "muscle ache", which are symptoms of flu, to the graph of flu.