No, but it behaves like one, according to researchers who used an internet game called www.wheresgeorge.com to predict the geographical spread of epidemics. How's that work? Money, like viruses, is spread by people and, since people travel great distances these days, coming up with a way to chart how far and fast an epidemic can travel has been nigh on to impossible. That's where wheresgeorge.com comes in. Players stamp dollar bills with the site's URL and people can log in and register the serial number of the bill, which allows participants to track its travels. Using "universal scaling laws" and the money data, researchers think they have made a breakthrough in modeling the spread of epidemics.Maybe everything really is connected.
