news, outreach

EpiFor @ Edinburgh International Science Festival March 12, 2010

The 22nd edition of the Edinburgh International Science Festival, running from April 3 to 17, 2010, features a special event, Meet the Medics and Vets, with the contribution of:

Epidemic Planet - explore how H1N1 influenza travels around the world and how intervention measures may help.

Epidemic Planet is the visualization application developed in the context of the GLEaMviz project, which enables its users to interactively compare and learn about the effect of a number of intervention scenarios on a pandemic, simulated using GLEaM. Its first public appearance was at the 3 months long INFECTIOUS Art & Science exhibition at the Science Gallery, Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland.

In collaboration with the British Society for Immunology, Epidemic Planet lands at the Edinburgh International Science Festival. In this installation, visitors will observe the evolution of the 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic since its early origin in Mexico, and will discover how the air traffic and commuting flows determined the spreading patterns of the flu worldwide.

Moreover, through a large screen coupled with a touch-screen interface, visitors will be able to explore different scenarios of propagation of the H1N1 pandemic according to different initial conditions (what if the flu started in Edinburgh? what if it were more contagious?) and different intervention measures. In this way, they will learn how the flights ban or the early distribution of vaccines could have affected the spreading of the pandemic.

The venue of the Epidemic Planet exhibition will be Hawthornden Court, in the National Museum of Scotland.
Check out the programme of the Festival!

Come and visit the Epidemic Planet in Edinburgh!