Facebook research most shared online study in 2014

A controversial Facebook study that attempted to influence 'emotional state' by selectively showing positive or negative stories in users' news feeds has received more online attention than any other scientific research in 2014.

According to the web analytic firm Altmetric, news about the 'emotional manipulation study' was shared 4,000 times to almost 10 million people on Twitter.

The article was also mentioned in 300 news sites, 130 blogposts, 13 subreddits and 113 Google+ profiles, the Guardian reported.

On Facebook, however, the research was shared publicly just 344 times.

'Since there are likely to be more private wall posts on Facebook so the total cannot be determined,' the report stated.

The paper titled 'Experimental evidence of massive-scale emotional contagion through social networks' was published in the journal the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in July this year.

Second place went to a paper in the Journal of Ethology titled 'Variation in Melanism and Female Preference in Proximate but Ecologically Distinct Environments'.

A study in the journal Nature suggesting that artificial sweeteners could induce glucose intolerance came third while the fourth place went to a research breakthrough in stem-cell research also published in Nature.

At fifth place was a paper that appeared in the journal Frontiers in Zoology. In the study, the researchers watched dogs defecating and discovered that they were sensitive to small variations in the Earth's magnetic field.