Epidemiology and the Internet are a perfect combination. Enter Google Flu Trends, where you can go online to track the spread of influenza, state by state in real time. It turns out that when folks are sick they get online and Google the floogle.

"We've found that certain search terms are good indicators of flu activity," Google notes. "Google Flu Trends uses aggregated Google search data to estimate flu activity in your state up to two weeks faster than traditional flu surveillance systems."

There is a close correlation between searches for information about diseases and the incidence of those maladies including the seasonal flu, allergies, sun-burns, etc. Google, now the tracker of all sorts of trends, compared its activity to no less than the CDC and found the search activity to be an accurate reflection of the progression of the flu season. CDC has validated the Google data. (Note that not every person who searches for information actually has the condition, however sufficient numbers do to arrive at trend data.)
Seeing is believing at:
http://www.google.org/flutrends/

Read a draft paper about it:
http://www.google.org/about/flutrends/manuscript.pdf

And stand by for Google Tracks Heartburn--the Thanksgiving edition!

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