Tracking cell phone use could help curb epidemics: study

0 Comments | AFP, June, 2008

PARIS (AFP) — Scientists searching for patterns in seemingly random human movements have found that people, in the aggregate, go about their daily lives with mathematical regularity, according to a study published Thursday.

Tracking the movements of 100,000 people over six months through cell phone use, the researchers discovered that highly variable individual travel patterns collapsed into a single mathematical formula of probability.

"Despite the diversity of their travel histories, human follow simple reproducible patterns," said co-author Cesar Hidalgo of Northeastern University in Boston.

Truly creatures of habit, most people migrate consistently to the same handful of spots, with occasional "long hops" to more distant locations, said the study,...