A couple weeks ago I wrote a story about some work related to the Boston Marathon bombings that network scientists in David Lazer’s lab are working on. They’re asking Android phone users to donate a little time as well as the data from the calls and texts they made in the hours following the attacks. Researchers ...
Debate season is an exciting time for professor David Lazer’s lab, and I’m delighted to be able to bring you more analysis from their team. This time, research assistant professor Yu-Ru Lin explains what their Twitter-meter had to say about Tuesday night’s presidential debate. Together with Drew Margolin, Lin led a team from the Lazer ...
As expected, last night’s VP debate was engaging, to say the least. David Lazer‘s lab was at it again, analyzing real-time Twitter data to gauge the public’s response to the event. Below, Lazer explains their Twitter “winning index,” which fluctuated across the two candidates’ performances. Twitter allows real-time calculation of audience responses to the debate. ...
Sixty million people are expected to tune in on Wednesday night to watch the first presidential debate of this election season. While the debates themselves may not determine the outcome of an election, the voters watching them do. So, wouldn’t it be nice if we could crawl into the minds of those voters and catch ...
Here’s a statistic for you: From internet and mobile phone use to credit card transactions and voting records, we now generate more socio-economic data each 1.2 years than we did during all of previous human history combined. That’s according to a McKinsey Global Institute Study cited in the first pages of the new open-access online ...
What has NASA done to make your life awesome? Let’s see…. Google Earth Ear thermometer Built the first inflatable antennas to support emergency communication Developed lifesaving heart pump for patients awaiting heart transplants Developed and validated all-electric flight control systems now used on nearly all modern aircraft These are just a smattering of the advances ...
Since you’re reading this blog, you’ve probably heard of network science and big data by now. It’s the field of research in which scientists leverage the amazing amounts of data we have these days to understand the world’s myriad networks, be they social, genetic or even transportation-based (ie., the network of airline flights across the ...
Today’s post comes all the way from Nahant, where graduate student Daniel Blustein is pursuing adventures in both robotics and science communications at Northeastern’s Marine Sciences Center. He was invited to participate in a panel discussion at Monday’s science communication training session at the University of Rhode Island Graduate School of Oceanography. In our first ...
Yesterday I was the victim of a cyber attack, which sucked. But it also meant I got to watch science happening in real time. First of all, cyber-security is a big topic of discussion here at Northeastern. I blogged about it last week after speaking with Professors Engin Kirda and William Roberston about their DARPA ...
Last week a coworker tried to explain the ins and outs of Twitter to me with little success. I get the point, really I do — it’s just that I find the information overload issue impossible to circumnavigate. “You just have to ignore some of it,” she said. This idea of a finite attention span ...