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Books

Text Analyzer Reveals Emotional 'Temperature' of Novels and Fairy Tales 65

Posted by Soulskill from the fahrenheit-451-surprisingly-chilly dept.
KentuckyFC writes "Stories are a powerful channel for communicating emotions. But while they have been studied in detail by generations of critics, there is little in the way of objective tools for analyzing and comparing their emotional content. That looks set to change thanks to one data mining researcher who has applied the process of sentiment analysis to novels and fairy tales that have been digitized on Project Gutenburg and the Google Books Corpus. The results show the density of emotions in different parts of a story and how the emotional 'temperature' changes throughout the tale. For example, this guy has used the technique to compare the emotional content of the entire collection of the Brothers Grimm fairy tales to reveal that the darkest story is a tale called Gambling Hansel; clearly a lesson to us all."
News

Adults Make Riskier, More Inconsistent Decisions As They Get Older, Study Finds 225

Posted by Soulskill from the they-have-more-reason-to-worry-about-the-short-term dept.
schliz writes "People aged over 65 make poorer financial decisions and more inconsistent choices than younger individuals with the same IQ, an international research group has found. The study (abstract) had 135 healthy participants aged 12-90 make a series of decisions: for example, choosing between gaining $5 and the chance to win $20 in a lottery. On average, over-65s earned 26-39% less than all other age groups, including adolescents — a finding that could partially explain their susceptibility to problem gambling and scams."
Space

Cassini Probe Sees Plastic Ingredient On Titan Moon 71

Posted by timothy from the windblown-grocery-bags dept.
Ron024 writes "The Cassini probe has detected propene, or propylene, on Saturn's moon Titan. It is the first definitive detection of the plastic ingredient on any moon or planet, other than our home world, says the U.S. space agency (NASA). The discovery, made by Cassini's infrared spectrometer, is reported in Astrophysical Journal Letters [abstract]."
Earth

Congress Reaches Agreement ... On Helium 255

Posted by timothy from the this-is-your-voice-on-helium dept.
Despite the wrangling that's resulted in a government shut-down, Congress managed last week to agree on one thing: Helium. Reader gbrumfiel writes: "The U.S. holds vast helium reserves which it sells to scientists and private industry. According to NPR, a new law was needed to allow the helium to continue to flow. Congress passed it late last week, but only after a year-long lobbying effort and intense debate (and in the end, Senator Ted Cruz opposed the measure). Can a new bipartisanship rise out of this cooperation? Or will hot air prevail on Capitol Hill? (Insert your helium joke here.)" Apparently, helium is not yet so scarce that it's not available in balloons at the grocery store.

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