Scientists take pulse of a nation

Last month, the DLC took a special look at how money and generosity play a role in our happiness. Today we'd like to share with you an interesting resource that traces happiness through location and time of a day.

By analyzing over 300 million tweets over nearly three years, scientists at Northeastern University believe they have taken the pulse of America. Assessing positive or negative values to the 140-word Twitter messages, they show how the nation's mood varies from region to region and by time of day.

In this 90-second video, you'll see how some areas of the maps swell and turn green (happy) while others retract and turn red (unhappy). Some regions remain constant (New York seems to be in a perpetual foul mood) while others fluctuate over the course of the day.

Two key observations that can made is that it appears the early morning and late evening have the highest levels of happiness and that the west coast shows significantly higher levels of happiness than the east coast. If you live in the US, let us know on Facebook if this map is in sync with what you see in your region.