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The bright side of sadness Thomas Jefferson defended the right to pursue happiness in the Declaration of Independence. But that’s so 237 years ago. Many modern societies champion everyone’s right to be happy pretty much all the time. Good luck with that, says psychologist Joseph Forgas of the University of New South Wales in Sydney. “Bad moods are seen in our happiness-focused culture as representing a problem, but we need to be aware that temporary, mild negative feelings have important benefits,” Forgas says. Growing evidence suggests that gloomy moods improve key types of thinking and behavior, Forgas asserts in a new review paper aptly titled “Don’t worry, be sad!” New and recent studies described by Forgas in the June Current Directions in Psychological Science illustrate some of the ways in which periods of sadness spontaneously recruit a detail-oriented, analytical thinking style. Vertes Edmond Mihai/Shutterstock Feelings as information Individuals aren’t slaves to their moods, Schwarz cautions. Power of sad

What's YOUR country famous for? Map reveals that UK leads the world in fascist movements while U.S. has most Nobel laureates and lawnmower deaths The map is based on statistics gathered from across the internet from sources including the World Bank and Guinness World RecordsIt was created by DogHouse Diaries and shows that some stereotypes seems to be true, such as the U.S. eating the most hotdogsThe map also highlights surprising things associated with certain countries, such as Spain and cocaine and Peru and sandboarding By Sarah Griffiths Published: 11:50 GMT, 22 October 2013 | Updated: 15:35 GMT, 22 October 2013 From making babies to being struck by lightning, a new map has revealed the surprising things that countries are best at. The map is based on statistics gathered from across the internet - ranging from sources as diverse as the World Bank to the Guinness World Records. Created by online comic and website DogHouse Diaries, the map shows what each country leads the rest of the world in and the words picked - which are written across the country's geographical territory - are in many cases surprising. Enlarge

How Machines Really Work 13 Ingenious GIFs That Will Make You Wish You Paid Attention In Chemistry This comic is incredible We Underestimate Our Changes: The End of History Illusion It’s like déjà vu all over again. ~Yogi Berra Yep. What happened? The Nehru went out of style around 11:55 p.m. the night of the prom and I had to hang on to my bell-bottoms and tie-dyes for about 30 years for them to come back around into fashion. How could I have been so wrong about the future of Nehrus and 8-tracks? But in spite of my convictions at the time I was about as wrong as wrong could be. Research recently reported on in the New York Times about a study on self-perception published in Science shows that individuals at every age and demographic make this kind of error: They call it the End of History Illusion because at each age we tend to underestimate the changes we will go through in the coming decade — even when we can point to all the changes we’ve been through in the last 10 years. We think — somehow — that we have arrived at a more evolved plateau of being. I am (we are) about to do it all over again. How could this be? It is a hard pill to swallow. Additional Reading

School of Humanities :: Research :: Philosophy Research :: Centre for the Study of Perceptual Experience :: Illusions Ambiguous Figures Duck/Rabbit A photographic version of the Duck/Rabbit Continuing on the animal theme: Dog/cat/mouse ambiguous figure Young Woman/Old Woman One for academics: book or cleavage? How many circles can you see in this picture? Notice that when one triangle seems to point in a certain direction so do all those around it. Saw-Tooth Illusion An illusion similar to the Necker Cube. You may wish to read Fiona Macpherson (2006) "Ambiguous Figures and the Content of Experience", Nous, 40(1): 82-117, about experiences of ambiguous figures and their philosophical significance. Shape Illusions Muller-Lyer Zollner Illusion Ebbinghaus Illusion Impossible Figures Penrose Triangle Impossible Figure by Oscar Reutersvard Impossible Figure by Oscar Reutersvard Impossible Figure by Oscar Reutersvard Many of Escher's pictures depict impossible figures, such as Belvedere. These photos show a piece of wood that when looked at (or photographed) from the right angle appear to be of an impossible triangle.

Male bowerbirds create forced perspective illusions that only females see Right from its entrance, Disneyland is designed to cast an illusion upon its visitors. The first area – Main Street – seems to stretch for miles towards the towering castle in the distance. All of this relies on visual trickery. The castle’s upper bricks and the upper levels of Main Street’s buildings are much smaller than their ground-level counterparts, making everything seem taller. The buildings are also angled towards the castle, which makes Main Street seem longer, building the anticipation of guests. These techniques are examples of forced perspective, a trick of the eye that makes objects seem bigger or smaller, further or closer than they actually are. Bowerbirds are relatives of crows and jays that live in Australian and New Guinea. The great bowerbird’s taste for interior design seems quite Spartan compared to his relatives. He found that the males place the largest objects towards the rear of the courtyard and the smallest objects in the front near the avenue.