Where the Dalai Lama Is Donating His Templeton Prize Money
The Tibetan Buddhist spiritual leader was awarded the prize, which comes with 1.7 million dollars, Monday at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. About 1.4 million dollars will go to Save the Children in India, with about 200,000 dollars set aside for the Mind & Life Institute, a nonprofit that researches the partnership between modern science and Buddhism. (msnbc.com)

Self-Deception and Laughter
The researchers found a link between a lack of laughter and denial of one’s darker impulses. “Participants who scored higher on a self-deception questionnaire laughed less, and reported less enjoyment, in response to a stand-up comedian than those who scored lower,” Robert Lynch and Robert Trivers report. (Tom Jacobs, Pacific Standard)

Religion at a Rocket Launch
As the next residents of the International Space Station—Gennady Padalka, and Sergei Revin of Russia and Joe Acaba from the United States—prepared for takeoff, an Orthodox priest blessed the Soyuz rocket at the Baikonur Cosmodrome launch pad in Kazakhstan. In addition to blessing the rocket itself, the priest also blessed the cosmonauts and astronauts according to a tradition begun in 1994 by cosmonaut Aleksandr Viktorenko, who requested a blessing for the Soyuz TM-20 crew before their launch to Mir. (Rebecca Horne, Photo Journal, The Wall Street Journal)

Why It’s Worth Fighting Over Science Education
Janet Stemwedel: From time to time, thoughtful people ask whether some of these battles are distractions from more important issues—and, specifically, whether the question of what a community decides to include in, or omit from, its high school biology curriculum ought to command so much of our energy and emotional investment. (Doing Good Science, Scientific American)

BOOKS
The Self Illusion
The science is confirming what the Buddha, Scottish philosopher David Hume, and many other thinkers maintained: that there is no concrete identity at the core of our being, and that our sense of self is an illusion spun from narratives we construct about our lives. Bruce Hood’s The Self Illusion is a thoroughly researched and skillfully organized account of the developments in psychology and neuroscience that are helping to substantiate this unsettling vision of selfhood. (Michael Bond, CultureLab, New Scientist)

EXHIBIT
Trail of the Magic Bullet: The Jewish Encounter With Modern Medicine, 1860-1960
The exhibition offers a rare look at a topic few patients ever stop to consider: the emergence of European and American Jews as innovators in medicine, despite their status as outsiders frequently scorned by the medical establishment. (Roni Caryn Rabin, The New York Times)

Can Someone’s Morals Really “Evolve”?
President Obama endorsed gay marriage in an interview Wednesday. The president has described his views on gay marriage over the past few years as “evolving,” but many believe he was just waiting for public opinion to catch up with him. Can someone’s moral principles really evolve? (Brian Palmer, Explainer, Slate)

Cultural Differences Between Neighboring Chimp Groups
Like humans who might use a different slang term for “that’s cool” or have distinct fashion sense, adjacent chimpanzee groups also show cultural differences, in this case, in their nut-cracking techniques, researchers have found. (Jennifer Welsh, LiveScience)

Astronomical Tables From the Maya Civilization About 1,200 Years Ago Discovered
Scientists already knew they must have been keeping such records at that time, but until now the oldest known examples dated from about 600 years later. Astronomical records were key to the Mayan calendar, which has gotten some attention recently because of doomsday warnings that it predicts the end of the world this December. Experts say it makes no such prediction. The new finding provides a bit of backup. (Malcolm Ritter, Associated Press)

Take It Slow for Enjoyment
People rush through experiences not necessarily because they lack self-control but because they simply don’t realize that slowing down consumption leads to more pleasure, a study finds. (Christopher Shea, Ideas Market, The Wall Street Journal)

The Limits of Science
We asked prominent scientists and thinkers two of the biggest questions in their field: Is there anything science can’t explain? And is there anything it shouldn’t try to explain? (New Statesman)

Q&A
Paul Zak
In his latest book, The Moral Molecule, neuroeconomist Paul Zak describes oxytocin’s role in trust, bonding, and even virtuous behaviour. New Scientist caught up with him about avoiding the term “the cuddle chemical” and trying not to make a bride faint on her wedding day. (Jessica Hamzelou, CultureLab, New Scientist)

The Chimp That Gathers Stones to Later Throw at Visitors
Now Santino is back in the scientific literature, the subject of new claims that he has begun to conceal the stones so he can get a closer aim at his targets—further evidence that he is thinking ahead like humans do. The debate over Santino is part of a larger controversy over whether some humanlike animal behaviors might have simpler explanations. (Michael Balter, ScienceNOW)

Mapping the Human Connectome
The research by Jeff Lichtman and his co-workers has a goal in mind that is so ambitious it is almost unthinkable. If we are ever to understand the brain in full, they say, we must know how every neuron inside is wired up. (Ian Sample, guardian.co.uk)

Evidence of a Cult at the Time of King David?
Archaeologists have unearthed a trove of artifacts dating back to the time of the biblical King David that they say closely correspond to the description of Solomon’s Temple found in the Book of Kings. (Michele Chabin, Religion News Service)

Scientists and Public Outreach
Female scientists and researchers with kids are the most likely to reach out and communicate their science to the public, a new study finds. The results are based on a random sample of biologists and physicists in the United States, so they may not be universal for all scientists. But according to their interviews with these researchers, science communication is getting the short end of the stick. Though 58 percent of the scientists surveyed in the study reported engaging in some sort of public outreach, 31 percent said their universities were a major barrier in communicating their research. (Stephanie Pappas, LiveScience)

VIDEO
The Case for Naturalism
Sean Carroll: This is the best I can do in 10 minutes to sum up the progress in human understanding that has led us to reject the supernatural and accept that the natural world is all there is. (Cosmic Variance, Discover)

When Partisans Reject Facts That Clash With Their Political Loyalties
Brendan Nyhan and Jason Reifler hypothesized that partisans reject such information not because they’re against the facts, but because it’s painful. That notion suggested a possible solution: If partisans were made to feel better about themselves—if they received a little image and ego boost—could this help them more easily absorb the “blow” of information that threatens their pre-existing views? Nyhan said that ongoing—and as yet, unpublished—research was showing the technique could be effective. (Shankar Vedantam, Morning Edition, NPR)

Conflicts Between Religion-Based Hospital Policy and Patient Care
More than one-third of obstetrician-gynecologists at religiously affiliated hospitals say they’ve had a conflict with their institution about patient care policies based on religious tenets—including over half of ob-gyns at Catholic hospitals, according to a new survey. (Genevra Pittman, Reuters)

Staying Happy
“Previous research shows that an individual’s happiness can increase after major life changes, such as starting a new romantic relationship, but over time happiness tends to return to a previous level,” psychologist Kennon Sheldon said. “Through our research, we developed a model to help people maintain higher levels of happiness derived from beneficial changes.” The model consists of two components: The need to keep having new and positive life-changing experiences and the need to keep appreciating what you already have and not want more too soon, he explained. (Janice Wood, Psych Central)

Emotional Words and Bilingual Readers
Reading a nasty word in a second language may not pack the punch it would in your native tongue, thanks to an unconscious brain quirk that tamps down potentially disturbing emotions, a new study finds. (LiveScience)

“Once Upon a Time”
Why such lasting and ubiquitous appeal? What is it that the words promise, exactly? Beyond the lure of fantasy and the make-believe, magic kingdoms and talking animals, why that phrase, that turn, that wording? (Maria Konnikova, Literally Psyched, Scientific American)

Superhero Psychology
To mark the release of The Avengers, a movie that features several high-profile superheroes, including Captain America, the Hulk, and Black Widow, psychologist Robin Rosenberg discussed what makes some of these characters so intriguing psychologically. (Brent Bambury, Day 6, CBC Radio)

Controversy Over Emory University’s Commencement Speaker
An unusual controversy has erupted at Emory University over the choice of famed neurosurgeon Ben Carson to deliver this year’s commencement address because he does not believe in evolution. Nearly 500 professors, student, and alumni signed a letter expressing concern that Carson, as a Seventh-day Adventist, believes in creationist theory that holds that all life on Earth was created by God about 6,000 years ago. (Valerie Strauss, The Answer Sheet, The Washington Post)

Q&A
Christopher Boehm
In his new book, Moral Origins, Christopher Boehm speculates that human morality emerged along with big game hunting. When hunter-gatherers formed groups, he explains, survival essentially boiled down to one key tenet—cooperate, or die. (Megan Gambino, Smithsonian.com)