Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) researchers recently performed a multi-part analysis of Twitter and concluded that it is a surprisingly interconnected network and an effective way to filter information. On the MSN messenger network, the median degree of separation is six. However, on Twitter, the average path length is 4.12. Because 94 percent of Twitter users are fewer than five degrees of separation from one another, it is likely that the distance between any random user and a celebrity is even shorter on Twitter than in real life. “No matter how many followers a user has, the tweet is likely to reach [an audience of a certain size] once the user’s tweet starts spreading via retweets,” write the KAIST researchers. Earlier Twitter studies suggested that the best way to get noticed was to tweet at certain times of day. “Half of retweeting occurs within an hour, and 75 percent under a day,” according to the researchers. “What is interesting is from the second hop and on is that the retweets two hops or more away from the source are much more responsive and basically occur back to back up to five hops away.”
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An upcoming President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) report will address the issue of improving pre-college math and science education in the United States. Its recommendations could include grants, a new federal agency, and increasing funding to programs that let students do science themselves, says University of Maryland’s James Gates. Gates is co-chair of a PCAST working group on science, math, engineering, and technology education. Gates says the National Science Foundation, the National Defense Education Act, and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) have helped foster technology innovation. However, he says there is “nothing like DARPA in the education system” and something like that needs to be directed at education. Another step the federal government could take is to find ways to jumpstart market-based solutions, according to Gates. He notes that there is a change taking place in the education system, as 46 governors have agreed to sign a common core of standards in what could be a unitary thesis that will control what happens in the schools.
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