Plus: The Upside of Grumpy, Robot Fish, Your Face in Space and Soccer Ball Physics.

Grumpiness is Good For You
Ever feel like you’re having “one of those days”? Well, research shows that you may be better off if every day was one of those days, as grumpiness may lead to better cognitive skills and performance in certain tasks.

In a study from late 2009, Australian psychology expert Joe Forgas found that grumpy people are better able to cope with demanding situations than cheerful or happy people due to how the brain “promotes information processing strategies,” according to BBC News. The findings suggest that although cheerfulness may be beneficial for creativity, a gloomier outlook leads to higher attentiveness and more careful thinking.

Forgas, a professor at the University of New South Wales, asked subjects to watch certain films and dwell on various positive or negative events in their lives until they were put in either a good or bad mood. They then took a series of tests designed to measure their reasoning and decision-making skills. Forgas found that those in a bad mood outperformed the cheerful ones, making fewer mistakes and communicating in a clearer manner.

The findings are similar to those of earlier research from Rice University on grumpiness in the workplace, which illustrated that good moods can enhance expansive thinking while bad moods were more effective in problem-solving and keeping employees sharp.

Robots Fish Steering Other Fish to Safety
The ongoing oil spill in the Gulf Coast and the numerous failed attempts at capping the gusher have led engineers to find creative ways for lessening the impact of this disaster. Even the fish may soon be receiving high-tech help.

Maurizio Porfiri, an assistant professor at the Polytechnic Institute of New York University, recently developed a robotic “cyberfish” designed to infiltrate and take over schools of fish in order to lead them to safety, Popular Science reports. Although the invention was originally intended to help sea creatures avoid hazards such as underwater turbines, it may have more immediate applications in the Gulf Coast.

In building their artificial fish, Porfiri and a team of researchers first had to understand the mechanics of fish behavior, particularly the criteria for a leader. By studying common bait fish, they discovered that leaders beat their tails faster and accelerated to get other fishes’ attention before forming a school. They then constructed mathematical models charting the behavior and built a fishbot to mimic the necessary steps.

“Porfiri designed the robot to swim silently, using ionic polymers that respond to electrical stimulation from a battery to drive the fins. This enables the robot to move in a smooth-yet-jerky, darting fashion like regular fish,” Discovery News reports.

The same mathematical models that drive fish movements may also eventually be applied to influence bird migrations or even herd mammals out of danger zones. “The current Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is claiming the lives of numerous species, from fish to turtles to birds,” Discovery News adds. “This new technology could be employed to steer animals away from oiled areas.”

Put Your Face in Space
Now that the U.S. space shuttle program is winding down, with only two remaining manned missions left, NASA is offering space travel fanatics one last chance to have their pictures seen in orbit.

In its new Face in Space promotion, the U.S. space agency is enabling fans to upload their name and picture to a Web site, and the data will then be transferred to a shuttle mission of their choice. Participants can choose between the STS-133 mission on Discovery scheduled for September or the STS-134 on Endeavour set to launch in November or later.

The concept is already generating enthusiasm from people eager to take part in the historic final missions. “James Hartsfield, a spokesman at NASA’s Johnson Space Center, says several thousand people uploaded files during a beta-testing period that was primarily aimed at space agency employees and contractors,” MSNBC’s Cosmic Log blog notes. “Once word got out, other folks contributed as well.”

Those who sign up for the promotion will also receive flight confirmations and shuttle updates via e-mail. Afterward, they’ll get signed certificates from the mission commander highlighting your face in the vastness of space. Bricks of freeze-dried ice cream are not included.

Soccer Ball Science
After four long years, it’s time for the World Cup again, when Americans savor their favorite pastime: international soccer. Kidding aside, the World Cup is likely to be the year’s largest global spectacle, and Adidas’s new Jabulani soccer ball will be the standard for World Cup matches this year.

Researchers have spent four years developing the ball’s design with a focus on minimizing unpredictable movement while in the air, the United Kingdom’s Telegraph reports. Testing involved using a robot foot to kick various prototypes at targets and measuring variations in their flight.

The final version replaces stitching with glued or thermally bonded seams and cuts the number of surface panels down to eight, making it smoother and rounder and providing a 70 percent larger striking area. Sixteen special “aero-grooves” have also been added to stabilize its aerodynamic performance.

“The result — for the first time in football history, say the manufacturers — is an undistorted, perfectly spherical ball,” BBC News reports.

The developers say the ball’s physics performance is the most consistent of any soccer ball used yet, eliminating any unpredictably that would benefit a less skillful player and allowing teams to play solely on their talent.

“I don’t know if there’s such a thing as a perfect ball,” Loughborough University’s Dr. Martin Passmore, one of the new ball’s engineers, told the BBC. “And I don’t think it’s entirely clear what you’d want from a perfect ball. Maybe a perfect ball would be one that I could use to score the winning goal in the World Cup.”

World Cup Advertising is Big Business
The World Cup begins today, with the first match in South Africa, and the event is likely to be as big for businesses as it is for sports fans. The World Cup is expected to add an estimated $1.5 billion to the advertising industry alone, with commercial airtime during the month-long competition averaging 50 percent higher in cost than typical rates, Bloomberg News reports.

“World Cup spending is aiding a recovery of the global ad industry, which suffered plunging revenue during the financial crisis and is slowly recouping lost ground,” Bloomberg News explains.

For companies that can afford it, the World Cup is a rare opportunity to reach audiences around the world, with the largest ad campaign (from Coca-Cola) airing in 160 countries. The last World Cup, in 2006, attracted a cumulative TV viewership of 26 billion, with 5.3 billion views in Europe alone.

Here are some of our favorite upcoming advertisements for this year’s event, each already with millions of views:

Have a great weekend, folks, and enjoy the games.