Reading List

I have added a reading list to the right hand side of my blog called "primary literature". I hope record my thoughts on interesting papers as I read them here on my blog periodically. I plan on posting a new paper each day (but not comment everyday) with a link to the paper. I think it will be a mix of old literature relevant to my interests and new stuff that comes across my screen (desk just doesn't seem like the correct phrase anymore). If anyone comes across interesting stuff, send it on over. Today I came across

Dynamic spread of happiness in a large social network: longitudinal analysis over 20 years in the Framingham Heart Study

In this article, the authors James Fowler and Nicholas Christakis suggest that happiness is contagious in social groups over three degrees of separation. If you are happy or be come happy it increases the likelyhood that your friends are happy or will be come happy and that effect is detectable on friends of a friends as well. I have not yet read it in detail, but I want to see how they control for the association of happy people. Anyway, I hope everyone is happy.