The forecast calls for a flu outbreak, here. NASA scientists, social and behavioral scientists and epidemiologists believe satellite images can signal coming epidemics.

NASA’s satellite images of Earth ground temperatures and pollution will help epidemiologists and behavioral scientists, the space agency says.
NASA is partnering with a university public health laboratory (which is run by an Egyptologist, interestingly enough) to better understand the environmental causes of disease.

The Laboratory for Global Health Observation at the University of Alabama will study how water (presumably flouridated) affects dental health, as well as the links between lead, mercury, pesticides and the health of babies.

Tire fires (easily seen from space), for example, create ideal conditions for the spread of West Nile Virus, according to NASA.

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Studies sponsored by the lab have already led to critical research in fighting malaria. Infrared imagery from satellites is helping scientists locate warm standing water – fertile breeding ground for mosquitos. Then the problem areas can be treated effectively and precisely, stopping the spread of malaria.

Other researchers at the lab are using satellite imagery to correlate cases of West Nile virus with nearness to tire dumps — a favorite breeding ground for the virus-carrying mosquito.

This idea led UAB to create a remote sensing lab – in fact the first U.S. dedicated remote sensing lab for medical and public health use – to do just that.

The scientists from UAB and NASA realized that rocket science could be focused down to the level of microbiology and public health and yield huge advances in both.

And here is a temperature map of the type the new global health observation will use:

– Mark Baard