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We have software that can diagnose whether we broke a bone, where our kids are every minute, even perform surgery through a robot. But be careful with your tweets.  Now there's software that can tell how you were feeling when you, well, tweeted.  Computer scientists from the University of Utah’s College of Engineering have developed what they call “sentiment analysis” software that can automatically determine how someone feels based on what they write or say. To test out the accuracy of this software’s machine-learning model, the team used it to analyze the individual sentiments of more than 1.6 million (and counting) geo-tagged tweets about the U.S. presidential election over the last five months. A database of these tweets is then examined to determine whether states and their counties are leaning toward the Republicans or Democrats.  “With sentiment analysis, it will try to predict the emotions behind every human being when he or she is talking or writin...

How's your kid's grip?  Did you know you can use it to figure out whether he's going to do his homework? No joke.  A new study says the ability to hold a grip predicts the willpower to do homework. According to newswise.com, researchers at McMaster University have established a connection between a person’s ability to maintain a firm grip and having the self-control to finish their schoolwork. There is not yet a clear cause-and-effect relationship between squeezing a handgrip and working up the willpower to tackle a school assignment, but it’s clear there is a connection, says Matthew Stork, a PhD candidate in Kinesiology and lead author of a study published in The Journal of Health Psychology. Stork and his co-authors looked at a group of 30 first-year university students, asking them their plans to engage in two tough challenges for students adjusting to university life: completing their school work and keeping up their exercise schedules. Both require hig...

Now how's this?  Reading about Donald Trump today can make you fat tomorrow. Well, that's not quite true but it could be.  According to new research , bad news today can influence a country's weight. What’s in the newspaper today can predict how skinny or fat a country’s population will be tomorrow, says new research published in BMC Public Health by Brian Wansink, Professor and Director of the Cornell University Food and Brand Lab, and Brennan Davis, Associate Professor of Marketing from California State University at San Luis Obispo at newswise.com. According to the study, food words trending today will predict a country’s obesity level by 2018 ¬– just three years from now! If you're like me and look forward to Wednesdays and the food section in The New York Times, be very scared.  The study analyzed all the food words mentioned in The Times and The Times of London over the past 50 years and statistically correlated them with each country’s annual Body Mass ...

Uh oh.  I knew it.  New studies are showing that people who think they might -- or develop -- Alzheimer's may be right. According to newswise.com, "A  recent study suggests that self-reported memory complaints might predict clinical memory impairment later in life." For the study, a researcher asked over 3,000 men 60 and older, " Have you noticed any change in your memory since you last came in?" Now I'm not 60 yet but if you asked my son how many times I forgot to bring his strawberries after I cut them to him, well, never mind.  Let's just say it's a lot. "It seems that subjective memory complaint can be predictive of clinical memory impairment," said  one of the study authors. In other words, if you think you do, you just might. The memory and thinking lapses people notice in themselves could be early markers of risk for Alzheimer’s disease, says experts, adding that perhaps there's hope in that because doctors might be a...