Spend some time on the internet and you should became an expert at both detecting and delivering sarcasm. According to research into the subject, that could benefit your brain.

Actually, scientists are finding that the ability to detect sarcasm really is useful. For the past 20 years, researchers from linguists to psychologists to neurologists have been studying our ability to perceive snarky remarks and gaining new insights into how the mind works. Studies have shown that exposure to sarcasm enhances creative problem solving, for instance. Children understand and use sarcasm by the time they get to kindergarten. An inability to understand sarcasm may be an early warning sign of brain disease.

Sarcasm detection is an essential skill if one is going to function in a modern society dripping with irony. “Our culture in particular is permeated with sarcasm,” says Katherine Rankin, a neuropsychologist at the University of California at San Francisco. “People who don’t understand sarcasm are immediately noticed. They’re not getting it. They’re not socially adept.”

Bless their hearts. This article from Smithsonian looks at various studies and what they tell us about how we use, misuse, and abuse sarcasm. Link

Randall Munroe of xkcd  presents a dozen different ways to project the earth onto a map, and analyzes the fans of each. My favorite (after the globe, of course) is the Robinson projection, which pegs my lifestyle pretty well. Link -via the Presurfer

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Deputy Ryan Swartz of Huron County, Michigan responded to a call about a car hitting a deer Friday night. The small doe just stood there dazed, like a deer in the headlights... well, not like, because that's exactly what she was. Swartz got out of his car to shoo the animal off the road before someone hit it again, but the doe still didn't move. So the deputy did what he had to do. After about 25 minutes, the deer took off into the woods. Link -via Arbroath

The Old Thirteenth Cheshire Astley Volunteer Rifleman Corps Inn is a real tavern in Stalybridge, Cheshire, England. But it's not the strangest name for a bar you'll find in this gallery of ten at DJMick. Link -via Breakfast Links

The job pays well, but the minimum education and work experience requirements are pretty stiff and you'll have to relocate to Houston. Also, you must be small enough to fit into a Soyuz spacecraft.

NASA, the world's leader in space and aeronautics is always seeking outstanding scientists, engineers, and other talented professionals to carry forward the great discovery process that its mission demands. Creativity. Ambition. Teamwork. A sense of daring. And a probing mind. That's what it takes to join NASA, one of the best places to work in the Federal Government. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has a need for Astronaut Candidates to support the International Space Station (ISS) Program and future deep space exploration activities.

Applications will be taken until January 27th. -via Metafilter

Mike and Nancy Rogers were to be married in the main lodge at White Point Beach Resort in Nova Scotia. However, that building was on fire, so they held the ceremony in another resort building. But the happy couple took the opportunity to pose for a wedding portrait in front of the conflagration. That's one photo composition you don't see at every wedding! Read about the fire and see videos at HuffPo. Link -via Buzzfeed

(Image credit: Nicholas Augustus/Canadian Press)

Once again, it's time for our collaboration with the always fascinating What Is It? Blog. Do you know what the pictured item is? Or can you make an amusing wild guess?

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?

See another picture of this item at the What Is It? Blog.

Update: the mystery object is an inkwell. Congratulations to Anker, who had the correct answer right off. The funny answer award goes to Straight_Flush, who declared this to be a small hadron collider! Both win t-shirts from the NeatoShop. We had a lot of imaginative answers this week, some x-rated, so you should go read them all!

Could The Dark Tower by Stephen King have been inspired by Pico Cão Grande? This "volcanic plug" is in Obo National Park in the tiny island country of São Tomé and Principe off the coast of Africa. Photographs of this tower are hard to take because the top is usually in the clouds, but you'll find some good ones at Dark Roasted Blend. Link

(Image credit: Antonio Martins and Jose Bazelga)

Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle was a million-dollar movie star in 1921, when there weren't all that many million dollar movie stars. After a Labor Day weekend party, a young actress named Virginia Rappe was hospitalized and later died. Arbuckle was the prime suspect in her death. The prosecution's evidence came from the testimony of Maude Delmont, a woman with a shady past who kept changing her story.

The newspapers never questioned Delmont’s version of events, and they kept flogging Arbuckle. His reputation was in a shambles, even after his friends Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin vouched for his character.

But Arbuckle’s lawyers introduced medical evidence showing that Rappe had had a chronic bladder condition, and her autopsy concluded that there “were no marks of violence on the body, no signs that the girl had been attacked in any way.” (The defense also had witnesses with damaging information about Rappe’s past, but Arbuckle wouldn’t let them testify, he said, out of respect for the dead.) The doctor who treated Rappe at the hotel testified that she had told him Arbuckle did not try to sexually assault her, but the prosecutor got the point dismissed as hearsay.

No matter what happened in court, Arbuckle also went through "trial by newspaper." Find out what happened to Fatty Arbuckle, legally and professionally, at Past Imperfect. Link

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Ben Mendelsohn gives us a look at "The Physical Underbelly of the Internet."

The video is meant to remind viewers that the Internet is a physical, geographically anchored thing. It features a tour inside Telx's 9th floor Internet exchange at 60 Hudson Street in New York City, and explores how this building became one of the world's most concentrated hubs of Internet connectivity.

Read more about the film at Brain Pickings. Link

I once referred to the candy bar as Peter Paul's Almond Joy and my kids thought I was crazy. But that's what the candy was called when I learned to love it! You'll see all kinds of sweets that were sold a half-century ago in the 1949 NWCA Candy Salesman Book. Link -via the Presurfer

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The Dutch National Ballet rehearses for a performance at TEDxAmsterdam 2011, an independently organized TED event, November 25th in the Netherlands. Narrated by Rutger Hauer. -via Everlasting Blort

They hardly needed to put the name on the pot -just about everyone knows what they'll be drinking from it. Link

Who knows? It might be the same restaurant where the cold drink dispensers are labeled with pictures as well.

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Bert and Ernie are recording their voices for the TomTom GPS company. They can tell you how to get, how to get to Sesame Street! -Thanks, Bearfoot!

The dance of death (usually represented by a skeleton) has been a recurring theme in art and literature for centuries -at least! BibliOddysey has a sampling of such illustrations from the Heinrich Hein University of Düsseldorf collection, ranging from 1736 to the 20th century. Link