The automatic analysis of sentiment in text is fast changing the way we interpret and interact with words. On Twitter, for example, researchers have begun to gauge the mood of entire nations by analysing the emotional content of the tweets people generate.

In the same way, other researchers have started to measure the emotional temperature of novels by counting the density of words associated with the eight basic emotions of anticipation, anger, joy, fear, disgust, sadness, surprise and trust.

The next step, obviously was to write an algorithm that measures that emotional temperature throughout full length novels, and generate a musical soundtrack to accompany the text.

Interesting research, or pointless? Time will tell, but energy and money is increasingly being used to judge moods and allow software or equipment to react accordingly. The true value of this research might not become apparent until sometime in the future, even if it is only used so your phone can sing you a soothing song after you receive a nasty email from your boss.

Some researchers at Cornell University have been studying the way fruit flies respond to gusty winds. They've found that the wing neurons are able to react without input from the brain to more quickly respond to changing wind conditions. Reported by the New York Times : "Whatever the fly neurons are doing, they have the right stuff. The wings of fruit flies beat about 250 times a second. Disturb a fly's flight in an extreme way, Dr. Cohen said, and 'within three wing beats that sucker has recovered completely.'"

The research papers can be found here and here .