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Daily Archives: January 9, 2022

Psychological Language on Twitter Predicts County-Level Heart Disease Mortality

Eichstaedt JC, Schwartz HA, Kern ML, et al. Psychological language on Twitter predicts county-level heart disease mortality. Psychol Sci. 2015;26(2):159-169. doi:10.1177/0956797614557867. “Hostility and chronic stress are known risk factors for heart disease, but they are costly to assess on a large scale. We used language expressed on Twitter to characterize community-level psychological correlates of age-adjusted mortality from atherosclerotic heart disease (AHD). Language patterns reflecting negative social relationships, disengagement, and negative emotions—especially anger—emerged as risk factors; positive emotions and psychological engagement emerged as protective factors. Most correlations remained significant after controlling for income and education. A cross-sectional regression model based only on Twitter language predicted AHD mortality significantly better than did a model that combined 10 common demographic, socioeconomic, and health risk factors, including smoking, diabetes, hypertension, and obesity. Capturing community psychological characteristics through social media is feasible, and these characteristics are strong markers of cardiovascular mortality at the community level…”

Could microclots help explain the mystery of long Covid?

The Guardian Opinion – Resia Pretorius [Resia Pretorius is the Head of Department and a Distinguished Research Professor in the Physiological Sciences Department, Faculty of Science, Stellenbosch University, South Africa] “One of the biggest failures during the Covid-19 pandemic is our slow response in diagnosing and treating long Covid. As many as 100 million people worldwide… Continue Reading

LOCO: The 88-million-word language of conspiracy corpus

Miani, A., Hills, T. & Bangerter, A. LOCO: The 88-million-word language of conspiracy corpus. [free full text PDF] Behav Res (2021). https://doi.org/10.3758/s13428-021-01698-z “The spread of online conspiracy theories represents a serious threat to society. To understand the content of conspiracies, here we present the language of conspiracy (LOCO) corpus. LOCO is an 88-million-token corpus composed… Continue Reading

Privacy myths busted: Protecting your mobile privacy is even harder than you think

CNET – “With increasingly invasive digital surveillance from advertisers and law enforcement over the past few years, securing your mobile phone from privacy threats in 2022 should be a key resolution. But don’t stop short. Changing a few settings in your phone and apps isn’t enough. To get the most privacy, the key ingredient to… Continue Reading

Release of the PFAS Sites and Community Resources Map

The PFAS Project Lab, Northeastern University: “A new online map launched this week brings together information about known and suspected PFAS contamination sites across the United States with resources for affected communities and information about state action. This unique and interactive tool, called the PFAS Sites and Community Resources Map, was developed by the PFAS… Continue Reading

NEW chart for US Covid-watchers – tracks cases in all states and impact on hospitals

Via John Burn-Murdoch, @jburnmurdoch – Stories, stats & scatterplots for @FinancialTimes | Mainly Covid for now | Visiting senior fellow @LSEdataScience | john.burn [email protected] | “Key question with Omicron wave is whether severe disease — hospitalisations & ICU — decouples from cases. In the UK it has, but there are signs the US decoupling is… Continue Reading

Preliminary US Greenhouse Gas Emissions Estimates for 2021

Rhodium Group: “After the global pandemic spurred a year of economic upheaval in 2020, many looked to 2021 as a year for recovery. Despite the political and financial measures to support recovery in the US, 2021 was characterized by continued uncertainty as the country navigated a patchwork of COVID-19 prevention measures, access to vaccines, and… Continue Reading