An Australian psychology expert who has been studying emotions has found being grumpy makes us think more clearly.
In contrast to those annoying happy types, miserable people are better at decision-making and less gullible, his experiments showed.
While cheerfulness fosters creativity, gloominess breeds attentiveness and careful thinking, Professor Joe Forgas told Australian Science Magazine.
A 'monster' great white shark measuring up to 20 ft long is on the prowl off a popular Queensland beach, according to officials.
Swimmers were warned to stay out of the water off Stradbroke Island after the shark mauled another smaller great white which had been hooked on a baited drum line.
The 10-foot great white was almost bitten in half.
The fictional shark at the centre of the Steven Spielberg blockbuster Jaws was estimated to be just five feet longer.
Nearly every form of multicellular animal we know competes for dominance in a pecking order. That includes lizards, lobsters, chickens, puppies, and you and me. And those competitions are almost always about who can lift himself the highest. Who can aim for the top and achieve it. Who can aspire to the skies. Lizards challenge each other with contests to see who can lift his body and his chin to the greatest heights. When the showdown is over. the winner turns a bright green, goes to the highest object he can find-a stick stabbing toward the heavens or the peak of a rock from which he can be the master of all he surveys. The loser turns brown and literally tries to crawl into a hole and die. He digs a trench, flattens himself into it and attempts to hide. Often he pines away and dies within two weeks. Why?
And why the total color change? Because this contest to see who can rise the highest and who can look up the farthest radically reworks a lizard's biology.
To see that biology at work, let's spy on the height loving rituals of another animal family, one that separated from its common ancestor with reptiles over 600 million years ago. A common ancestor that in all probability already had a reach-for-the-skies fetish built into its genes. This time, we're talking about lobsters and crayfish. Two crayfish go up against each other to see who can raise his body and his head the highest. The crayfish who wins the lift-showdown goes through a massive central-nervous-system-shift. His synaptic receptors for the neurochemical serotonin are altered by his triumph.
As you know, serotonin is the hormone boosted by the human anti-depressant Prozac. But, surprisingly, serotonin is not always an upper. In losers, it‘s a downer. Here's why. Nerve cells pass chemical signals to each other at the synapse, a junction point where the walls of two cells face each other over a tiny distance. One cell wall sends a chemical like serotonin. The other cell wall receives it. As you know, the receiving cell wall's chemical catcher's mitts are massive and intricate molecules called receptors. But here's what you may not know. Receptors can be unplugged like Christmas tree bulbs and new ones can be popped into their slots. And the new receptors can be very different from the ones they replace. One of the forces that insures that the new receptors will be the very opposite of the old is winning and losing-who comes out on top and who does not.
The new serotonin receptors of the victor interpret serotonin as the ambrosia of the gods, a chemical energy shot that gives the triumphant crustacean confidence and dignity. His serotonin receptors give him a positive way of seeing the world around him. How can we tell? Winners see solutions to problems that losers are blind to. What's more, winners' resistance to disease goes up. And the winner's reworked neurochemical receptor system gives him an erect posture, a posture of leadership. For the winning crayfish the chemicals of high spirits and of lofty aspirations strut their stuff.
But the serotonin receptors in the loser go through the opposite of this lofty confidence-creation. They spiral the creature they serve into a nose dive. The loser's newly screwed-in neuronal receptors interpret serotonin as a signal of shame, a signal that tells their master to abase himself, to crawl humbly before his betters. Thanks to a radical remake of his hormonal receptors, the loser interprets the world as being in a state whose very name is derived from the image of pressing something down--depression.
In technical terms, serotonin becomes a stimulant for the top animal and an inhibitor for the crayfish that he's just defeated. What's more, the loser's system is shot through with octopamine...a chemical that makes him timid. Even worse, the losing crayfish's system is flooded with stress hormones. In the short run, those hormones make the defeated crayfish's perceptions sluggish, his emotions dreary, his body slumped, his resistance to disease diminished, and his attitude one of bleak acceptance. In the long run, stress hormones are poisons. They can kill.
Shih-Rung Yeh, Russell Fricke and Donald Edwards, the researchers who illuminated the neurochemistry of these who-can-reach-higher dominance contests, remarked that it's as if each crayfish--the winner and the loser--has gone through a brain transplant. My colleague and sometime conspirator in the generation of new ideas, evolutionary biologist Valerius Geist, Professor Emeritus of Environmental Science at the University of Calgary and President of Wildlife Heritage Ltd., calls this a change in phenotype, a body-shift. It's also a shift that can happen to you and me
The bottom line? The crayfish that lifts himself the highest wins. The crayfish or lizard with the animal equivalent of the loftiest vision goes through a brain and body shift.
They say the gesture allows a bug named Cytomegalovirus, which is dangerous in pregnancy, to be passed from man to woman to give her time to build up protection against it.
The bug is found in saliva and normally causes no problems. But it can be extremely dangerous if caught while pregnant and can kill unborn babies or cause birth defects.
Never a Lone Wolf Again!, May 19, 2009
I'll be honest. I ordered the Three Wolf Moon T-Shirt based off the amazing promises I read about at Amazon.com. When my order arrived, I was not disappointed. As the UPS truck was driving down the street with my delivery, my female neighbors began opening their doors and stepping outside. I suspect the Three Wolf Moon T-Shirt contains powerful lupine pheromones. The shirt is made up of soft cotton. I was grateful to see this as it flexed as my muscles grew after donning this garment. The Three Wolf Moon T-Shirt gave me a +10 resistance to energy attacks, +8 Strength, and added 30 feet to my normal leap. I cannot list the specific effects involving the opposite sex as I am still discovering these. And they are many. Since owning the Three Wolf Moon T-Shirt, I have successfully solved 7 crimes in my city, including 4 cold case murders. The local police force is currently wishing to retain my services. I do have one complaint, and that's that I must stay indoors on windy days. Last fall we had a windy day and I received notice that hundreds of women were suddenly pregnant, carrying my offspring, up to 12 miles away. That said, I would whole-heartedly recommend the Three Wolf Moon T-Shirt. You never need to be a lone wolf again!
By Lupidorr Theopian (Gotham) - See all my reviews
You have to buy the most awesome t-shirt ever!
Last weekend I wrote about how the big social gaming companies are making hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue on Facebook and MySpace through games like Farmville and Mobsters. Major media can’t stop applauding the companies long enough to understand what’s really going on with these games. The real story isn’t the business success of these startups. It’s the completely unethical way that they are going about achieving that success.
In short, these games try to get people to pay cash for in game currency so they can level up faster and have a better overall experience. Which is fine. But for users who won’t pay cash, a wide variety of “offers” are available where they can get in-game currency in exchange for lead gen-type offers. Most of these offers are bad for consumers because it confusingly gets them to pay far more for in-game currency than if they just paid cash (there are notable exceptions, but the scammy stuff tends to crowd out the legitimate offers). And it’s also bad for legitimate advertisers.
Ever Curious
