Would it kill you to smile?
"When was the last time you flashed a fake smile at the office?" The New York Times asks. "For some, it may be just another mundane aspect of work life - putting on a game face to hide your inner unhappiness. But new research suggests that it may have unexpected consequences: worsening your mood and causing you to withdraw from the tasks at hand. In a study published this month in the Academy of Management Journal, scientists tracked a group of bus drivers for two weeks, focusing on them because their jobs require frequent, and generally courteous, interactions with many people. … After following the drivers closely, the researchers found that on days when the smiles were forced, the subjects' moods deteriorated and they tended to withdraw from work. … But on days when the subjects tried to display smiles through deeper efforts - by actually cultivating pleasant thoughts and memories - their overall moods improved and their productivity increased."
You didn't sell out
"[T]e idea that midlife crises are common is a myth, experts say," Livescience.com reports. " 'It makes for good novels or good movies, but it is not really accurate,' said psychologist Margie Lachman of Brandeis University in Massachusetts. 'There is no specific time in life that predisposes you to crisis,' said Alexandra Freund, a life-span researcher at the University of Zurich in Switzerland. … One of the popular misconceptions is that midlife crises are spurred by a sudden realization that the values and goals of youth have been abandoned for more comfortable, and achievable, aspirations; that the person has 'sold out.' Freund finds such concerns puzzling. 'Selling out to whom?' she asked. In the process of figuring themselves out, young people will wrestle with establishing personal goals and values. After young adulthood, however, personality remains relatively stable for the rest of one's life, researchers have found. As for goals, new ones are usually variations of the original goal and are aligned with the person's core values, Freund said. … It's not the values that usually change, it's the approach."
Monkeys have self-doubt
"Monkeys trained to play computer games have helped to show that it is not just humans that feel self-doubt and uncertainty, a study says. U.S.-based scientists found that macaques will 'pass' rather than risk choosing the wrong answer in a brainteaser task," BBC News reports. "Awareness of our own thinking was believed to be a uniquely human trait. But the study, presented at the [American Association for the Advancement of Science]meeting in Washington, suggests that our more primitive primate relatives are capable of such self-awareness. Professor John David Smith, from State University of New York at Buffalo, and Michael Beran, from Georgia State University, carried out the study."
On the other hand
"People who are relatively ambivalent about which hand they use may also have moods that are more susceptible to suggestion," New Scientist reports. "So says Ruth Propper at Montclair State University, N.J., and colleagues, who discovered that 'inconsistent-handers' - those who favour neither their right nor left hand - are more easily persuaded to feel a certain way than consistent right-handers. Almost 90 per cent of the world's population remains loyal to the right hand. … The remaining 10 per cent is divided between people who consistently prefer the left hand and those who switch between right and left."
Too many culprits
Investigators in Sweden say about 130 people have confessed to the murder of prime minister Olof Palme, but the case remains unsolved 25 years after he was shot on his way home from a movie theatre in Stockholm, Associated Press reports.
I hear you're single again
" 'You like someone. They're in a relationship. Be the first to know when they're out of it.' That's the tagline for Breakup Notifier, an amazingly simple way to keep tabs on that special someone - who happens to be dating a special someone else," The Huffington Post reports. "Jumping off of Facebook, Breakup Notifier lets you log in, check off the friends you're interested in, and then e-mails you once they're no longer taken. That's really it." The app checks for breakups every 10 minutes.
Thought du jour
"Chronic remorse, as all the moralists are agreed, is a most undesirable sentiment. If you have behaved badly, repent, make what amends you can and address yourself to the task of behaving better next time. On no account brood over your wrongdoing. Rolling in the muck is not the best way of getting clean."
- Aldous Huxley (1894-1963), English author