From David Stephenson’s blog:

[T]here’s an important new study on networking behavior from the Ohio State Research Foundation with implications for a many strategies, including my “smart mobs for homeland security” one.

As reported in the American Journal of Sociology. a team of sociologists […] mapped the romantic and sexual relationships at a Midwestern high school over an 18-month period.

The map showed fundamental differences from adult sexual networks, which tend to radiate from a few sexually-active individuals (such as the role of adult sexual networks, which tend to radiate from a few sexually-active individuals (such as the role of sex workers and truckers in the spread of AIDS) but also from “maps” of technology networks such as the one of the Internet that shows a great deal of clustering around a few key nodes (see Barabasi’s work on 19 degrees of separation for web pages) that makes some networks vulnerable to failure. […]

[full link]I’m not too up on the role of network mapping for public health purposes, but I’ve got to say that the [1] the topographical differences (see sources) between teens and adults is interesting, and [2] that’s some cool software they’re using.

I’d love to do a research project on US immigration patterns with that app.