Though reminiscent of Larry Niven’s “wireheads,” there is evidence that electrical current applied directly to the brain may help patients with depression. [mefi]

I’m of two minds about the UK government’s avowed intent to invest heavily in nuclear power. I can see the need for it, and I’ll admit it’s not as dangerous as some make it out to be … but, well, let’s just say I’m not astonishingly confident in their ability not to screw it up somehow, if only economically. I’d be much more confident if they were looking into Thorium reactors, like the Norwegian government are doing – which are cleaner, safer, and use a far more abundant fuel than the usual fission plant designs.

Here’s a new market for Hitachi’s RFID dust: the Underwater World aquarium in Singapore has started tagging some of the fish in its displays with RFID chips which trigger displays of data on the specimen in question when they swim past. Projects like this give an inkling into how tagging could be useful for things other than warehouse inventory audits.

No shortage of space related material in the blogosphere today, that’s for sure. First, the news that the design of Hubble’s replacement, the James Webb Telescope, is being tweaked to allow it to be serviced by remote drones while in orbit – hence (hopefully) avoiding the technical issues that have plagued the Hubble for the last year or so.

Next, Centauri Dreams reports on the discovery of a multi-planet star system that could throw the established theories of planet formation out of the window.

And there’s masses more, thanks to Universe Today hosting the 4th Carnival of Space blog carnival. If you don’t know what a blog carnival is, it’s a blog post that links to a whole load of other specially-written posts in the same subject area. It’s also a great way to kill a few hours!

Obviously Hitachi are interested in more than just tagging everything on the planet – they want to watch how your brain works, too. Their new brain-scanner, based on their optical topography technology, examines blood flow in the brain tissue to determine where the activity is taking place in real time – which is quite impressive for a control box and headset that add up to just over a kilogram in mass. The potential uses are manifold – but we can guess that the neuromarketing vultures will be all over it like flies once it hits the market.