Poor Mojo's Newswire

So what is the point of pride, and why do we have two prides that feel different but look the same? In general, when people see pride expressed they associate it with high status. So pride motivates us to do well so that we gain respect. There are two distinct ways to do this, which perhaps explains the flip sides of pride. Status can take two forms, says anthropologist Joe Henrich, also at UBC. The first is based on dominance and commonly seen in non-human primates, whereby bigger and stronger individuals are revered because they could overwhelm or kill others. The human equivalents include the playground bully and officious boss. The second kind of status is prestige. In this case, respect and power is gained through knowledge or skill. "This fits in with the two kinds of pride," says Tracy. "One is associated with aggression and overconfidence, while the other motivates achievement, hard work and altruistic behaviour."

Until the LHC finally gets up to full speed, Brookhaven National Lab's Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) remains the world's most powerful heavy ion smasher. And on Monday, they showed off some of that power by announcing that a recent collision resulted in the hottest matter ever recorded. Coming in at a scorching 7.2 trillion degrees Fahrenheit, the plasma not only recreated the environment of the Big Bang, but might have also resulted in the temporary formation of a bubble within which some normal laws of physics did not apply. The plasma, which was 250,000 times hotter than the center of the sun, seemed to create small pockets where particles lost their left- or right-handed identity. All particles have a specific spin direction that dictates different behaviors, and many chemical compounds have an orientation that makes mirror-image molecules react differently. According to scientists at the RHIC, the creation of these small, transient, bubbles that voided handedness may explain the process by which matter came to outnumber antimatter in the universe.

Star Trek fans, prepare to be disappointed. Kirk, Spock and the rest of the crew would die within a second of the USS Enterprise approaching the speed of light. The problem lies with Einstein's special theory of relativity. It transforms the thin wisp of hydrogen gas that permeates interstellar space into an intense radiation beam that would kill humans within seconds and destroy the spacecraft's electronic instruments. Interstellar space is an empty place. For every cubic centimetre, there are fewer than two hydrogen atoms, on average, compared with 30 billion billion atoms of air here on Earth. But according to William Edelstein of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland, that sparse interstellar gas should worry the crew of a spaceship travelling close to the speed of light even more than the Borg decloaking off the starboard bow.

Scientists have identified areas of the brain that, when damaged, lead to greater spirituality. The findings hint at the roots of spiritual and religious attitudes, the researchers say. The study, published in the Feb. 11 issue of the journal Neuron, involves a personality trait called self-transcendence, which is a somewhat vague measure of spiritual feeling, thinking, and behaviors. Self-transcendence "reflects a decreased sense of self and an ability to identify one's self as an integral part of the universe as a whole," the researchers explain. Before and after surgery, the scientists surveyed patients who had brain tumors removed. The surveys generate self-transcendence scores. Selective damage to the left and right posterior parietal regions of the brain induced a specific increase in self-transcendence, or ST, the surveys showed.

Skeptics of global warming are using the record-setting snows to mock those who warn of dangerous human-driven climate change - this looks more like global cooling, they taunt. Most climate scientists respond that the ferocious storms are consistent with forecasts that a heating planet will produce more frequent and more intense weather events. . . . A federal report last year, intended to be the authoritative statement of known climate trends in the United States, pointed to more frequent snowstorms in the Northeast and less frequent snow in the South and Southeast as a result of long-term temperature and precipitation patterns.