Author Archives: Kathleen

Twitter Study Tracks When We Are :)

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According to the article: Drawing on messages posted by more than two million people in 84 countries, researchers discovered that the emotional tone of people’s messages followed a similar pattern not only through the day but also through the week and the changing seasons. The new analysis suggests that our moods are driven in part by a shared underlying biological rhythm that transcends culture and environment.

Read about the study here: Moods on Twitter Follow Biological Rhythms, Study Finds – NYTimes.com.

Facebook’s new Timeline

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Facebook unveiled its new Timeline feature yesterday, which basically reinvents the old Facebook profile, turning it into a digital history of your life. It resurfaces old posts, photos and events from your past and creates a digital time capsule for you and your friends to share.

Naturally I was curious to learn more about it so I couldn’t wait to test it out. Being a “Facebook Developer,” I was able to get early access to the Timeline (This isn’t really that exclusive – anyone who signs up as a developer can do this!) So last night I tested it out and published my first Timeline. You can see a screenshot of my “Timeline” profile now. It is expected to roll out to everyone next week (Sept. 29).

So far, I kind of like it. It’s allowing you to add more to your life than just a couple of quick facts. As Zuckerburg said in his address, it’s the conversation that follows the introduction. So far I like that you can add more photos and information about where you’ve been and what you’ve done.

What do you think?

Global Adaptation Index: Revealing a Country’s Vulnerability to Challenges

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After my summer in Geneva, I’ve been looking out for smart visualizations of global social, environmental and economic issues.  Here’s one I found this week from Infosthetics:

FROM INFOSTHETICS: The Global Adaptation Index [globalai.org] by Development Seed presents a country’s ‘vulnerability’ to global challenges (e.g. food, health, infrastructure) and contrasts this parameter to its perceived ‘readiness’ (e.g. economic, governance, social). The sophistically designed and highly interactive website aims to make people more aware to prioritize investments for more efficient responses to the immediate global challenges ahead.

 

According to them, New Zealand, Australia and Denmark are the ‘most ready’ – but they don’t do a great job explaining what this means right away, so there is somewhat of a disconnect between the visualization and the meaning readers can extract from it. FYI, Readiness targets those portions of the economy, governance and society that affect the speed and efficiency of absorption and implementation of Adaptation projects.

via Global Adaptation Index: Revealing a Country’s Vulnerability to Challenges – information aesthetics.

Immune System, Loaded With Remade T-cells, Vanquishes Cancer – NYTimes.com

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Photo by Jessica Kourkounis for The New York Times. CLOSE-UP Dr. Carl June examined re-engineered T-cells last week in his Philadelphia lab.

This is an amazing story about a possible breakthrough in cancer research using gene therapy.  One the verge of death, a man diagnosed with terminal leukemia made a miraculous recovery at the age of 65 after receiving experimental gene therapy at the University of Pennsylvania.

ARTICLE: Immune System, Loaded With Remade T-cells, Vanquishes Cancer – NYTimes.com.

9/11 +ME 10th Anniversary Interactive Presentation

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9/11 + Me

Interactive: 9/11 +ME 10th Anniversary Interactive Presentation.

USA TODAY finally unveiled the 9/11 anniversary project: 9/11 + Me this week which allows readers to browse a customized history of 9/11 details and stats.

The project integrates Facebook by allowing users to connect and personalize their experience by exploring information that relates to them.

Infosthetics has a short piece on the project here.

U.S. Poverty Mapped

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This week, one of my favorite news sources, The Guardian, released data and an interactive showing U.S. poverty mapped.

According to this data, record numbers of Americans are living in poverty – 46.2 million, according to the latest data from the US Census Bureau. You can see the data visualized on The Guardian’s Data Blog here.