Twitter can reveal our shared mood.

Twitter can reveal our shared mood.In the largest study of its kind, researchers have analyzed mood indicators in text from 800 million anonymous messages posted on Twitter. These tweets were found to reflect strong patterns of positive and negative moods over the 24-hour day. Circadian rhythms, widely referred to as the 'body clock', allows people's bodies to predict their needs over the dark and light periods of the day. Most of this circadian activity is regulated by a small region in the hypothalamus of the brain called the suprachiasmatic nucleus, which is particularly sensitive to light changes at dawn and dusk, and sends signals through nerves and hormones to every tissue in the body. The research team looked at the use of words relating to positive and negative emotions, sadness, anger, and fatigue in Twitter over the course of four years. The public expressions of affect and fatigue were linked to the time they appeared on the social platform to reveal changes within the 24-hours.

Twitter and people with ADHD.

Twitter and people with ADHD. People with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder tend to tweet using words like 'hate' or 'disappointed,' messages related to lack of focus, self-regulation, intention and failure and expressions of mental, physical and emotional exhaustion, according to recent research. Better understanding this condition can help clinicians more effectively treat patients. What can Twitter reveal about people with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD? Quite a bit about what life is like for someone with the condition, according to findings published by University of Pennsylvania researchers Sharath Chandra Guntuku and Lyle Ungar in the Journal of Attention Disorders. Twitter data might also provide clues to help facilitate more effective treatments. "On social media, where you can post your mental state freely, you get a lot of insight into what these people are going through, which might be rare in a clinical setting," said Guntuku, a postdoctoral researcher working with the World Well-Being Project in the School of Arts and Sciences and the Penn Medicine Center for Digital Health. "In brief 30- or 60-minute sessions with patients, clinicians might not get all manifestations of the condition, but on social media you have the full spectrum." Twitter and people with ADHD.

Machine learning detects marketing and sale of opioids on Twitter.

Machine learning detects marketing and sale of opioids on Twitter.Using advanced machine learning, a cross disciplinary team of University of California San Diego researchers developed technology that mined Twitter to identify entities illegally selling prescription opioids online. Between June and November 2015, some 619,937 tweets containing the keywords codeine, Percocet, fentanyl, Vicodin, Oxycontin, oxycodone and hydrocodone were collected. The findings, published online in the American Journal of Public Health in October, detected 1,778 posts that were marketing the sale of controlled substances, 90 percent included hyperlinks to online sites for purchase.

How diabetes in pregnancy affects baby's heart.

How diabetes in pregnancy affects baby's heart.Researchers have discovered how high glucose levels -- whether caused by diabetes or other factors -- keep heart cells from maturing normally. Their findings help explain why babies born to women with diabetes are more likely to develop congenital heart disease. Researchers at the Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research at UCLA have discovered how high glucose levels -- whether caused by diabetes or other factors -- keep heart cells from maturing normally. When developing heart cells are exposed to high levels of glucose, the researchers found, the cells generate more building blocks of DNA than usual, which leads the cells to continue reproducing rather than mature.

Living happily in a material world: Material purchases can bring happiness.

Living happily in a material world: Material purchases can bring happiness.A recent study shows material purchases provide more frequent happiness.Researchers have shown that material purchases, from sweaters to skateboards, provide more frequent happiness over time, whereas experiential purchases, like a trip to the zoo, provide more intense happiness on individual occasions. By having people record their thoughts in the weeks following their purchases, as well as one month after their purchases, the researchers showed that material and experiential purchases bring happiness in two distinct flavors. Material purchases bring repeated doses of happiness over time in the weeks after they are bought, whereas experiential purchases offer a more intense but fleeting dose of happiness. Additionally, when people looked back on their purchases 6 weeks after Christmas, they felt more satisfaction about experiential purchases.

Fruit and vegetable consumption could be as good for your mental as your physical health.

Fruit and vegetable consumption could be as good for your mental as your physical health. New research focused on mental wellbeing found that high and low mental wellbeing were consistently associated with an individual's fruit and vegetable consumption. 33.5% of respondents with high mental wellbeing ate five or more portions of fruit and vegetables a day, compared with only 6.8% who ate less than one portion. The research, conducted by the University of Warwick's Medical School using data from the Health Survey for England, and published by BMJ Open focused on mental wellbeing and found that high and low mental wellbeing were consistently associated with an individual's fruit and vegetable consumption.

Self talk and voices in our head.

Self talk and voices in our head.As far our brain is concerned, talking to ourselves/self talk in our heads may be fundamentally the same as speaking our thoughts out loud, new research shows. The findings may have important implications for understanding why people with mental illnesses such as schizophrenia hear voices.