Brain scanning technology is teaching us how very versatile or brains are. For example, what is happening in the visual cortices of people who have been blind since birth? A series of experiments in which blind subjects were monitored while performing different linguistic exercises show that those parts of our brains are put to work for other tasks!

In the brains of people blind from birth, structures used in sight are still put to work — but for a very different purpose. Rather than processing visual information, they appear to handle language.

Linguistic processing is a task utterly unrelated to sight, yet the visual cortex performs it well.

“It suggests a kind of plasticity that’s even broader than the kinds observed before,” said Marina Bedny, a cognitive neuroscientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “It’s a really drastic change. It suggests there isn’t a predetermined function an area can serve. It can take a wide range of possible functions.”

Brains: use 'em if you got 'em! Link

Rob Cockerham constructed a chart of TV shows that were set in a time period other than the one they were produced in. This may be especially useful for young people who weren't watching at the time, like my children, who thought the series Happy Days was produced in the 1950s. Still, there are some surprises for all of us. Really, who knew that Lost in Space was set in 1997! Shown here is a small part of a much larger chart. Link

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The tungsten filament of a common incandescent light bulb is way more interesting than you thought. Bill Hammock, "The Engineer Guy," explains how it is made and how it works -or sometimes doesn't. -Thanks, Bill!

Also: If you enjoy the Engineer Guy, you'll love the video in which he posts and responds to criticism from reddit members. Link

Designer John Leung from ClarkeHopkinsClarke Architects presents the "Bias of Thoughts" Bookshelf. How does this illusion work? You can figure it out by seeing pictures of the bookshelf from different angles and a video as well at the Neatorama Spotlight Blog. http://www.neatorama.com/spotlight/2011/03/02/the-bias-of-thoughts-bookshelf/

Ronnie the 7-month-old Rottweiler has megaoesophagus, an incurable condition that makes it impossible for him to eat or drink like other dogs. He cannot swallow properly, and relies on gravity to get his kibble to his stomach. Therefore, it can take up to 20 minutes to spoon-feed him.

Staff at Leeds Dogs Trust rehoming centre have helped to make life easier for Ronnie after they designed and built him a special feeding station.

Manager Amanda Sands said: “We’ve fed Ronnie standing up since he came to the centre with his littermates aged seven weeks but now that he is bigger we can’t support and feed him at the same time.

“We designed the feeding station so he can support himself while we spoon-feed him. He happily gets in by himself.

“We’re going to decorate it so it will look nice in his home when he hopefully gets one.”

Ronnie will only be adopted out to a home in which he can receive the time and attention he needs. Link -via Arbroath

A couple of years ago we posted about an infinite photo called As Seen on Earth. National Geographic has a new infinite photo project called Tropical Island. At the link, you can select a piece of the image and click to zoom in on more images, and then click again to zoom in to yet more! You'll also find information about the creatures pictured. The images are of the life forms of the beautiful South Pacific island of Mo‘orea. Link -via Metafilter

(Image credit: the Biocode Project and National Geographic contributing photographer David Liittschwager)

I had so much fun playing this game that it was at least ten movies in before I realized that you don't have to type the entire title in order! You can guess letters if you don't know the answer, which may lead you to remember what movie the object is from. It's surprising how many I could guess without ever having seen the film in question. Link -via Breakfast Links

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This helmet-cam video might make you a bit woozy. Filip Polc rides down a steep path in Valparaíso, Chile as the crowd watches. -via The Daily What

We all suspected that George Lucas didn't really have his stories written in advance when it turned out that Luke Skywalker's love interest was (spoiler alert!) his sister. That kind of thing happens more often than you think in movies and TV. For example, you'd expect with a TV show like 24, the story of the entire season would be planned -after all, it's supposed to be 24 consecutive hours of action! But no...

Early in Season 6 they had a nuclear bomb going off in Los Angeles and killing at least 12,000 people ... only to be forgotten a few episodes later. That is, a few hours later. In the world of 24, America gets over an attack four times the size of 9/11 before the emergency response even gets fully under way. Did the writers really plan it that way?

To quote writer David Fury, they were just "winging it." He says that worked out fine because they got good ratings doing it: "In the early seasons of 24, [the writers tried] to map out stories and arc out stories [beforehand] a little bit more than they did, say, in seasons four and five, and four and five turned out to be two of most successful seasons."

Making up plots as you go along tends to happen more in shows that unexpectedly become hits -as if the writers were pretty sure they wouldn't have to write too many episodes. There are more examples in this surprisingly SFW article at Cracked. Link -via The Daily What

Just when you think a Twitter feed is run by machines, something happens to remind you that a real person with a real sense of humor is on duty. The Boston Police Department assures us that they aren't holding back pertinent information. -via Breakfast Links

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Since we didn't have cable TV when I was a kid, my father showed me how to put a small piece of cellophane tape on a cat's tail and watch the fun. Simon's Cat manages to get himself into that kind of situation, in the latest animation from Simon Tofield. -via Laughing Squid Previously: More Simon's Cat videos.

The wheel from the comic strip B.C. is now a real product! The Solowheel is sort of a minimalist Segway, consisting of only a powered, gyroscopic wheel and foot platforms. It should be available sometime this month for $1,500. See more pictures and a video at Gizmodo. Link -via the Presurfer

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What would you do if you had five minutes to live? Probably things you wouldn't do otherwise, as you'll see in this short film Ien Che made for a Campus Movie Fest at Emory University. -via reddit

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Thanks to auto-tune and video editing, the late George Carlin can add singing and dancing to his repertoire of stand up comedy. Remix by by DJ Steve Porter & DJ Eli Wilkie (Agent 001). -via I Am Bored

It's time for our collaboration with the always amusing What Is It? Blog. Can you guess what this mysterious item is?

Place your guess in the comment section below. One guess per comment, please, though you can enter as many as you'd like. Post no URLs or weblinks, as doing so will forfeit your entry. Two winners: the first correct guess and the funniest (albeit ultimately wrong) guess will win T-shirt from the NeatoShop.

Please write your T-shirt selection alongside your guess. If you don't include a selection, you forfeit the prize, okay? May we suggest the Science T-Shirt, Funny T-Shirt and Artist-Designed T-Shirts?

For more clues, check out the What Is It? Blog. Good luck!

Update: Several of the over 100 guesses were correct, but Twist was the first to say it is
a device used for making lots of holes before sowing seeds -it's called a "dibble board." See a couple more pictures here. The award for the funniest answer goes to artsnarf, who says this is Gojira's (Godzilla's) toothbrush! Both win t-shirts from the NeatoShop.