My, does Google stay alert. The Gadsen Times reports that Google noticed that “a lot of ailing Americans enter phrases like ‘flu symptoms’ into Google and other search engines before they call their doctors.” So Google has collected those searches into a new early warning system for flu, called Google Flu Trends. 
“Tests of the new Web tool from Google.org, the company’s philanthropic unit,” says the paper, “suggest that it may be able to detect regional outbreaks of the flu a week to 10 days before they are reported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.”
This is remarkable, and a…
