The study proved that people who were experiencing bad moods were more critical and paid more attention to the surrounding environment than happier people, who were more likely to believe everything that they were told.

“Whereas positive mood seems to promote creativity, flexibility, cooperation, and reliance on mental shortcuts, negative moods trigger more attentive, careful thinking paying greater attention to the external world,” Forgas wrote. “Our research suggests that sadness … promotes information processing strategies best suited to dealing with more demanding situations.”

To conduct this study, the team actually conducted several experiments that began by inducing happier or unhappier moods to the subjects, by recalling a past event or by watching movies. In one of the experiments, they were asked to analyze the truth (or lack of it) behind urban myths and rumors; the result was that those in sadder moods were less likely to believe what they were told and showed an increase of analytic ability.

The sadder people were also less likely to make rash decisions or those based on racial or religious beliefs and made fewer mistakes when recalling a past event.

“Positive mood is not universally desirable: people in negative mood are less prone to judgmental errors, are more resistant to eyewitness distortions and are better at producing high-quality, effective persuasive messages,” Forgas wrote.

It’s been known for quite a while now that a good mood can increase work capacity, concentration and creativity, but not so much effort has been put into understanding what happens to you when you are feeling unhappy.

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Jellyfish captured in China

Each of these aquatic giants can grow up to 2 meters in diameter and easily weigh over 200 kgs. They seem to be more and more of a problem, especially around Japan, and swarms of them are actually not an uncommon sight.

“Jellies have likely swum and swarmed in our seas for over 600 million years,” says “jellyologist” Monty Graham of the Dauphin Island Sea Lab in Alabama. “When conditions are right, jelly swarms can form quickly. They appear to do this for sexual reproduction.”

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“No one has ever had access to this kind of light before,” said LCLS Director Jo Stöhr. “The realization of the LCLS isn’t only a huge achievement for SLAC, but an achievement for the global science community. It will allow us to study the atomic world in ways never before possible.”

Early experiments are already showing some promise, providing insight on fundaments of atoms and molecules, underlying their properties. The short term goal is to create stop action frames for molecules in motion. By putting together many of these images to create a film, scientists will create for the first time a film with actual molecules in motion, being able to see chemical molecules bond and break, as well as actually see how atoms interact at a quantum level.

“It’s hard to overstate how successful these first experiments have been,” said AMO Instrument Scientist John Bozek. “We look forward to even better things to come.”

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In 2005, a huge 35 mile rift broke the Ethiopian desert apart and immediately led to geological claims that a new ocean was appearing there because two parts of the African continent were being pulled apart. However, the claims were quickly dismissed as being too controversial. However, a new study published in the latest issue of Geophysical Research Letters comes to back that idea up as the birth of at least a sea there seems inevitable.

It has to be understood that we are talking in geological time here. The extremely active volcanic areas around the rift along the edges of the tectonic plate may suddenly break apart in large ‘pieces’ instead of slowly dividing little by little as initially predicted. This could prove really dangerous to the local population according toCindy Ebinger, professor of earth and environmental sciences at the University of Rochester and co-author of the study.

“This work is a breakthrough in our understanding of continental rifting leading to the creation of new ocean basins,” says Ken Macdonald, professor emeritus in the Department of Earth Science at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and who is not affiliated with the research. “For the first time they demonstrate that activity on one rift segment can trigger a major episode of magma injection and associated deformation on a neighboring segment. Careful study of the 2005 mega-dike intrusion and its aftermath will continue to provide extraordinary opportunities for learning about continental rifts and mid-ocean ridges.”

“The whole point of this study is to learn whether what is happening in Ethiopia is like what is happening at the bottom of the ocean where it’s almost impossible for us to go,” says Ebinger. “We knew that if we could establish that, then Ethiopia would essentially be a unique and superb ocean-ridge laboratory for us. Because of the unprecedented cross-border collaboration behind this research, we now know that the answer is yes, it is analogous.”

“We know that seafloor ridges are created by a similar intrusion of magma into a rift, but we never knew that a huge length of the ridge could break open at once like this,” says Ebinger. “Seafloor ridges are made up of sections, each of which can be hundreds of miles long. Because of this study, we now know that each one of those segments can tear open in a just a few days.”

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No longer are we living the days when the corporations (even the big ones) can survive merely on the strict rigid way of thinking they’ve embraced for so long. Today, a satisfied client can draw 10 more, while an unsatisfied one can take away thousands. Social media sites such as Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and YouTube (and more) along with the blogosphere have exponentially increased the speed at which information is transmitted, and they’ve also magnified it hundreds of times (or even more).

“These new social media tools let people organize extremely quickly around any issue or event that inspires them,” said co-author Kane, an assistant professor of information systems at BC. “Within hours, these virtual communities can grow to hundreds of thousands, potentially reaching millions more in short order. Companies and organizations caught unprepared can find themselves in a media firestorm, just ask companies like Domino’s Pizza, Amazon.com, Comcast, and many others have.”

“Whether or not managers, leaders, or politicians even know the difference between Wikipedia, Facebook, or Twitter, they need to begin learning how to monitor and respond quickly to trends in these social media communities,” Kane said. “Doing so, they may not only prevent the spread of damaging information, but they may also find valuable partners in their organization’s mission. Companies like Dell, Starbucks and Kaiser-Permanente have moved beyond purely reactive strategies to proactively reach out to customers as an important resource for customer service, marketing, and new product development.”

Now, this scientific research has only pinpointed what good marketers have been knowing and applying for years now. The way society interacts has changed, and it affects all our lives, even if we don’t use social media. Whether we like it or not, this is a different era; but the good thing is, more power is brought to the people.

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A Snapshot of the Jewel Box cluster with the ESO VLT

Star clusters are among the pretties things you can see, when it comes to astrophysical observations. Recently, ESO provided some amazing pictures of one of the most beautiful nestles ever to be seen, located deep in the constellation of Crux.

Wide Field Image of the Jewel Box

The cluster is named Kappa Crucis Cluster and has been nicknamed ‘the jewel box’ (by Herschel, in 1830), for reasons easy to understand - it’s bright enough to be seen even with the naked eye.

Such open clusters can have from a few to thousands of stars that are loosely bound together by their own combined gravity. They’re really important for studies, because they were formed from the same cloud of gas (which means they have pretty much the same age and chemistry).

A Hubble gem: the Jewel Box

The FORS1 instrument on the ESO Very Large Telescope means we can look at this cluster in a whole different way, at extreme image quality.

Despite the chemical and age resemblance, stars in the cluster are extremely varied; there are pale blue supergiant stars, a solitary ruby-red supergiant and numerous brightly colored stars, as well as some that are more faint.

Digitized Sky Survey 2 Image of NGC 4755

The huge variety in colors results from the mass difference: there are stars that are smaller than half of the Sun, while some are 20 times bigger than our star

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“Young adults aged 20-24 years have the highest smoking rate of all age groups in Canada,” says Dr. Daskalopoulou, an internal medicine and vascular medicine specialist at McGill University Health Centre. “Our results are significant because they suggest that smoking just a few cigarettes a day impacts the health of the arteries. This was revealed very clearly when these young people were placed under physical stress, such as exercise.”

The arterial stiffness was calculated using a method called applanation tonometry that measures the arteries’ response in case of exercise, pretty much like a cardiac stress test. They compared the results of young smokers (5-6) cigarettes per day to non smokers.

“In effect we were measuring the elasticity of arteries under challenge from tobacco,” explains Dr. Daskalopoulou.

The results were pretty shocking: after exercise, smokers had an arterial stiffness increase of 12.6 per cent after nicotine gum and 24.5 per cent after a single cigarette. Interestingly enough though, there was no difference during rest.

“In effect, this means that even light smoking in otherwise young healthy people can damage the arteries, compromising the ability of their bodies to cope with physical stress, such as climbing a set of stairs or running to catch a bus,” says Dr. Daskalopoulou. “It seems that this compromise to respond to physical stress occurs first, before the damage of the arteries becomes evident at rest.”

“More than 47,000 Canadians will die prematurely each year due to tobacco use, which often starts in the teen years,” warns Heart and Stroke Foundation spokesperson Dr. Beth Abramson. “We know that over 90 per cent of teenagers who smoke as few as three to four cigarettes a day may be trapped into a lifelong habit of regular smoking, which typically lasts 35 to 40 years.”

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It’s a giant flower, and much like the largest one around, Rafflesia Arnoldii, emits a scent similar to rotten meat. It’s inflorescence can reach 3 meters in circumference, weighing 100 kilos or more and when it blooms, its scent is so bad you can barely keep your food in your stomach. However, it’s this smell that attracts its food, beetles and flies.

The plant generally remains open 24-48 hours and requires numerous months to bloom, which is why there have been under 150 blossoms recorded, despite the fact that it’s relatively easy to cultivate. Also, another interesting fact about it is that it was elected as the official flower of the Bronx in 1939, but was replaced in 2000 (I wonder why). Oh well…

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“There is a likely chance of tsunami waves reaching the shores of Israel. Tsunami events in the Mediterranean do occur less frequently than in the Pacific Ocean, but our findings reveal a moderate rate of recurrence.”

“We expected to find the remains of ships, but were surprised to reveal unusual geological layers the likes of which we had never seen in the region before. We began underwater drilling assuming that these are simply local layers related to the construction of the port. However, we discovered that they are spread along the entire area and realized that we had found something major”

What they did is they drilled at various depths and proceeded to date the layers they found, using two methods: everybody’s friend carbon-14 dating and OSL (optically stimulated luminescence). They found evidence of tsunamis in 1500 BC, 100-200 CE, 500-600 CE, and 1100-1200 CE. There is still much we still have to learn about tsunamis, especially as more and more areas seem vulnerable to their threat. However, this exact need may be what gives researchers the push they need to find out methods of protection.

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The tiles become white on a hot day and turn blackish when it’s cold outside. When white, the tiles reflect more than three quarters of the rays and when black, only about a quarter or so. However, the study is incomplete; they showed that a white roof can save 20 percent of present cooling costs, but were unable to quantify how much heating energy a black roof would save.

The tiles also shouldn’t be very expensive - they rely on a polymer that resembles that used in hair gels. When cooled, the polymer remains dissolved, allowing a black background to show through, and when warmed it forms tiny droplets that scatter light and produce a white surface. However, researchers report there is still a whole lot of work.

“It’s got to stand up to very harsh conditions,” said Nick Orf, a member of the team that calls itself Thermeleon (get it?). “Those sorts of tests would have to be done before we’ll know if we have a viable product.”

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