Tuesday, May 24, 2011

WolframAlpha Is My New Doctor [Medicine]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/5805228/wolframalpha-is-my-new-doctor

WolframAlpha Is My New DoctorFeeling ill? Whatever you do, don't look at WebMD, unless you enjoy convincing yourself you're having an aneurism. But WolframAlpha just made self-internet diagnosis useful. [Jump}

WolframAlpha launched a medical tools feature today so you can stay at home and play doctor. It aggregates survey data from the CDC to give you a search tool that lets you see how various symptoms (and combinations of them) correlate with various diseases. It also breaks down that data to show distribution actoss a variability of patients' attributes, like age, weight, height, and body mass. It's oddly kind of fun. And I found out I'm probably not having an aneurism! Which was a relief.

Photo by Allan Foster