Earthquakes in social media

[vgqn]

The U.S. Geological Survey actually uses info from social media (Twitter, particularly) to gather earthquake data. They remark, "The info gleaned from the Twitter posts is available almost instantly, whereas even the preliminary analyses the agency’s scientists use to pinpoint a quake’s origin and size often take 15 minutes or more."

Comments

[akirlu]

That's pretty cool. I'm fascinated by the clever ways scientists come up with to use data that's already out there.

I seem to recall there was a tainted food case a while back where the researchers were able to use grocery store loyalty program register data to isolate the manufacturer and batch of the tainted items.

[apostle_of_eris]

Everything from the season's flu to stock tips is being tracked . . .
I'm really curious where this will be 10 and 20 and 30 years from now.