Scientific American has an interesting article [gruesome surgery image warning!] on anatomical hemispherectomies – a surgical procedure that essentially removes half of a patient’s brain for the purpose of curing severe seizures. As counter-intuitive as it may seem, many of the patients function perfectly well after the procedure, which highlights the adaptability of the brain as a system. If you’ve read Blindsight by Peter Watts, you’ll find this fascinating; if you haven’t read this Hugo-nominated masterpiece of hard science fiction, I guess you should set about downloading the free version to find out what you’re missing out on.

As if yesterday’s selection wasn’t enough, here’s even more space-related stuff to read – maybe the 30th anniversary of Star Wars has put everyone in the mood …

UK astrophysicists have discovered that the Sun broadcasts information about its chaotic weather cycles as fractal patterns imprinted in the solar wind.

The HiRISE orbiter has observed what appear to be immensely deep holes in the crust of Mars, which offer the best odds for harbouring life anywhere on the planet by staying at a relatively stable temperature and shielding occupants from radiation.

And, for the existentialists among you, George Dvorsky has a round-up of past and current theories on how our universe could die. Don’t worry too much, though – it’ll be trillions of years before it happens.

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.