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Gareth Cook: What is the biggest misconception people have about the relationship between money and happiness?

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Pop culture is again in the quickly decaying grasp of a shambling horde. For how many times zombies have appeared, they rarely have a real scientific reason to. Sometimes it’s a supernatural cause as in Dawn of the Dead. Other times it’s a generic “zombie virus” as in The Walking Dead (though at least we know how a “walker” bite works). In all the attempts to make the dead live again, science usually takes a back seat to the gore—at least until the latest popular iteration of zombies.The Last of Us—a new videogame touted as a masterpiece—has the most scientific explanation for zombies yet, because it uses zombies that actually exist.

Mind Control and Fungus Art

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It looks like we’ve lost another one. The weird and unusual Chile Darwin’s frog (Rhinoderma rufum), whose tadpoles grew inside the vocal sacs of adult males, appears to be extinct: a four-year quest failed to turn up any evidence that the species still exists. The frogs were last seen in 1980.

As you might guess from its name, the Chile Darwin’s frog was discovered by naturalist Charles Darwin while he was traveling through South America in 1834. More than a century later scientists reclassified the mouth-brooding frogs—the only ones with this unique reproductive strategy—into two species, including the now-lost species that was native to northern Chile. The more simply named Darwin’s frog (R. darwinii) still exists farther south in ever-shrinking regions of Chile and Argentina.

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Public health officials sprang into action and tested further samples from the area that triggered the system, but turned up negative results. The alert, like others issued by the system in the past decade, was ruled to be a false alarm. Obama still made his acceptance speech that night, of course, in an open-air stadium as planned. But the system’s critics say BioWatch has repeatedly triggered an alarm when no threat has existed. Now the program faces the scrutiny of Congress.

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This year, alongside the cities of Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin and Chongqing as well as the regions of Guangdong and Hubei, Shenzhen is imposing greenhouse gas targets on hundreds of companies, ranging from power plants to airport operators. The goal is to develop a national carbon market over the next decade that could help put the brakes on the world’s largest carbon dioxide emitter.

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Two girls, no more than 15 years old, spotted the wounded rat from about 10 feet away. They held each other close, squealing and giggling, inching toward the animal theatrically. Staring them down, I scowled. How could they not appreciate this creature’s suffering or be touched by its desperation? I looked on, saying nothing.

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The Supreme Court today unanimously struck down patents on BRCA1 and BRCA2—two genes linked to hereditary forms of breast and ovarian cancer—when the genes occur in the body. Myriad did not create or alter any of the genetic information of the BCRA1 and BRCA2 genes, and thus does not satisfy patenting requirements, according to the decision. “Myriad discovered the precise location and sequence of what are now known as the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes,” Justice Clarence Thomas wrote for the court.

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The plan was foiled when not a single bystander so much as raised an eye brow. Several cows did notice, however, and they followed Cornell on his ghostly rambles. Was it just a fluke, or did people “not want to see” the besheeted man, as Cornell concluded in his 1959 report?

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For decades now, wild-born chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) have been classified as “endangered” under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Captive-born chimps, on the other hand, have only been classified under the lesser category of “threatened.” Chimpanzees have been the only species with this “split list” status, which afforded the captive-bred apes significantly lower protections, as I wrote in September 2011:

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Infectious disease control at mass gatherings is always a challenge, but this year even more so. Saudi Arabia is currently waging battle with MERS, yet it has released only the barest of details that scientists or public health officials could use to try to prevent its spread within Saudi Arabia or around the globe. In early May Saudi officials startled the world by announcing 13 new cases over the course of a few days. Since the start of May there have been 38 new cases worldwide—31 of them in Saudi Arabia—and 20 of the victims have died. With virtually no clues to draw on about where the virus lives in nature and how people contract it, WHO is trying to figure out what guidance to give those pilgrims, and the countries they will return to, about how to avoid infection and the international dissemination of a devastating new illness.

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A crucial goal of therapy is to learn to acknowledge and express a full range of emotions, and here was a client apologizing for doing just that. In my psychotherapy practice, many of my clients struggle with highly distressing emotions, such as extreme anger, or with suicidal thoughts. In recent years I have noticed an increase in the number of people who also feel guilty or ashamed about what they perceive to be negativity. Such reactions undoubtedly stem from our culture's overriding bias toward positive thinking. Although positive emotions are worth cultivating, problems arise when people start believing they must be upbeat all the time.

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In the decades since that long-gone, offline era, people have increasingly been using the Internet to search for compatible partners. In by far the largest study of its type, social neuroscientist John Cacioppo at the University of Chicago and his colleagues report today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that online meetings have resulted in a surprising number of successful marriages. From an online survey of 19,131 American adults who married between 2005 and 2012, the researchers revealed, for the first time, that a large proportion of marriages are emerging from online interactions. “I was astounded to see that over a third or marriages are now starting online. None of us knew that,” Cacioppo says.

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In March filmmaker and aquanaut James Cameron, back from his record-setting visit to the Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench 11 kilometers below the surface of the Pacific Ocean, announced the donation of his sub, DEEPSEA CHALLENGER, to Woods Hole, where scientists plan to use its cutting-edge technology to help further their understanding of life in ocean trenches.

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The question, of course, is what happens when we press “play” again. Are your talents, traits, and insecurities so deeply embedded in your genes that they’re basically inevitable? Or could things go rather differently with just a few tiny nudges? In other words, how much of your fate do you allot to your genes, versus your surroundings, versus chance? This is navel gazing that matters.

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Watch Out for Uncertainty

A job search or medical testing can breed doubts about the future, which in turn can interfere with our food choices. In one recent paper, being made to feel uncertain led people to select brownies over fruit. “Uncertainty appears to affect people by sapping the same kind of attention resources required to exert self-control,” says Katherine L. Milkman of the University of Pennsylvania and an author of the study in Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes. To counteract this effect, be mindful of situations that cause uncertainty and be aware that uncertainty can feel like fear, worry or anxiety. Accepting a lack of insight into the future as a part of life can help you spend less energy thinking about it, saving up self-control for decision making.

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