Do We Feel More Disconnected Even When Strangers Ignore Us?
A study, published in the journal Psychological Science, is based on the idea that people need to feel connected to be happy, and that a person can be negatively affected when even a stranger doesn’t acknowledge his or her presence, researchers said. (Amanda Chan, The Huffington Post)

Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation
“This could be the first step down a path not only to maximizing human potential but to increasing it” University of Oxford ethicist Julian Savulescu says. “It has significant potential advantages to every human being because the capacity to learn is fundamental to our humanity.” (Tom Feilden, BBC News)

Bosses Who Exercise Are Nicer
We’ve all heard exercise is good for your physical and mental well-being. But a good workout can actually influence the mental well-being of others, too. Because bosses who hit the gym tend to be less abusive to their employees. That’s according to a study in the Journal of Business and Psychology. (Christopher Intagliata, Scientific American)

NASA Confirms the Existence of 26 More Planets
The science team for NASA’s Kepler planet-hunting mission nearly doubled their list of confirmed planets beyond our solar system in one fell swoop, announcing the discovery of 26 planets spread among 11 star systems. (Alan Boyle, Cosmic Log, msnbc.com)

Newt Gingrich’s Moon Mission
Appearing on MSNBC’s Martin Bashir, director of the Hayden Planetarium and astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson sympathized with Republican hopeful Newt Gingrich’s ambitious vision for a moon base. “If the nation dreams big and that percolates its way through society, the dreams are enabled by prowess in science. Once everybody gets the feeling through them, they want to become scientists and engineers and participate in this adventure,” Tyson exclaimed. (James Crugnale, Mediaite)

Mitt Romney’s Tax Returns and Tithes
Sociologists have studied the correlations between religiosity and giving and niceness, and have discovered that the more people give, the nicer they are. That is to say, generous giving to religious institutions correlates to giving to secular charities (the Boy Scouts, say, and the American Heart Association), which correlates to volunteerism and civic mindedness and, broadly speaking, altruism. (Lisa Miller, On Faith, The Washington Post)

Alaska Airlines Will Stop Giving Prayer Cards to Passengers
“This difficult decision was not made lightly,” Alaska Air Group CEO Bill Ayer and Alaska Airlines President Brad Tilden wrote in an email to regular customers. “Some of you enjoy the cards and associate them with our service,” they wrote. “At the same time, we’ve heard from many of you who believe religion is inappropriate on an airplane.” (Melissa Allison, The Seattle Times)

The Places Where Religion Makes People Psychologically Healthier
Religious people tend to feel better about themselves and their lives, but a new study finds that this benefit may only hold in places where everyone else is religious, too. According to the new study of almost 200,000 people in 11 European countries, people who are religious have higher self-esteem and better psychological adjustment than the nonreligious only in countries where belief in religion is common. In more secular societies, the religious and the nonreligious are equally well-off. (Stephanie Pappas, LiveScience)

Ancient Social Networks
Hunter-gatherers exhibit many of the “friending” habits familiar to Facebook users, suggesting that the patterns for social networking were set early in the history of our species. At least that’s the conclusion from a group of researchers who mapped the connections among members of the Hadza ethnic group in Tanzania’s Lake Eyasi region. (Alan Boyle, Cosmic Log, msnbc.com)

How We Interact With Science
Marcelo Gleiser: There is a growing distance between most people and the way objects of interest to scientists are seen and studied, and how results from the various observations are interpreted. Perhaps this is why, some time ago, a reader told me that, to him, believing in an abstract God or in a claim that the universe is 13.7 billion years old was not so different. And yet, these two couldn’t be more different! (13.7: Cosmos and Culture, NPR)

The Time Girls Spend Online
How is technology affecting their happiness and emotional development? The answer, in the peer-reviewed study of the online habits of girls ages 8 to 12, is that those who say they spend considerable amounts of time using multimedia describe themselves in ways that suggest they are less happy and less socially comfortable than peers who say they spend less time on screens. (Matt Richtel, Bits, The New York Times)

Philosopher Alain de Botton Plans “Temples for Atheists” in Britain
Alain de Botton’s most recent book, Religion for Atheists, calls for unbelievers to copy the major religions and build grand architectural masterpieces to inspire a sense of perspective in people. He argues that a temple doesn’t need to be dedicated to a religion: “You can build a temple to anything that’s positive and good. That could mean: a temple to love, friendship, calm or perspective.” (Duncan Geere, Wired UK)

Q&A
Alan Lightman
Alan Lightman, humanities and physics professor at MIT and author of Einstein’s Dreams, provocatively tells the story of creation from God’s perspective in Mr. g. A tour through astrophysics and morality, Mr. g shows God wrestling with the same questions humans have debated for years: Why must there be suffering? How can we come to terms with mortality? And where do organisms get that sense of self we call consciousness? (Heather Horn, The Atlantic)