Gizmorama - October 29th, 2012

Good Morning,

Did you hear about the cat that accidentally discovered the ruins of a 2,000-year-old tomb? That's incredible! I guess cats are good for something after all.

Learn about this great discovery and other interesting stories from the scientific community in today's issue.

Until Next Time,
Erin

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*-- Yelp tags businesses for 'shill' reviews --*
SAN FRANCISCO - Popular U.S. review website Yelp says it's introducing an alert system to warn users about businesses it suspects have paid for positive critiques. Beginning Thursday, warning signs appeared when users tried to access the pages of some businesses with five-star ratings, with a button to click saying "Show me the reviews," the Los Angeles Times reported. "We caught someone red-handed trying to buy reviews for this business," a red-bordered alert box says. "We weren't fooled, but wanted you to know because buying reviews not only hurts consumers, but also honest businesses who play by the rules. Check out the evidence here." Yelp said it has flagged nine businesses for paying people to write fake, positive reviews, gathering evidence of what it calls "rogue solicitations," including Craigslist postings offering $10 to $200 for a positive review. "This pretty much breaks every rule in the book, not to mention it's just wrong to mislead consumers with fake reviews," Yelp said on its blog. "To combat this, we've put on our detective hats, tracked down these rogue solicitations and are now giving you a heads up." Yelp said roughly 1 in 5 reviews are prevented from appearing on its review pages because its proprietary algorithms tag them as possible fakes. The alerts linked to the nine businesses will be removed after three months, Yelp said, unless there's evidence of any of them still trying to buy reviews.


*-- Mars rover gets a taste of martian soil --*
PASADENA, Calif. - NASA's Mars rover Curiosity has swallowed its first solid sample into an analytical instrument inside the rolling laboratory, mission scientists said. The rover's Chemistry and Mineralogy instrument, or CheMin, is analyzing the sample to determine what minerals it contains, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., reported Thursday. "We are crossing a significant threshold for this mission by using CheMin on its first sample," Curiosity's project scientist John Grotzinger said. "This instrument gives us a more definitive mineral-identifying method than ever before used on Mars: X-ray diffraction. "Confidently identifying minerals is important because minerals record the environmental conditions under which they form." The sample, about as much material as an aspirin tablet, is from the third scoop collected by Curiosity at a patch of dusty sand called "Rocknest." A future sample will be delivered to the rover's other internal analytic instrument, the Sample Analysis at Mars investigation, which studies samples' chemistry, JPL said. Curiosity's two-year prime mission will see it using 10 instruments to assess whether the study area has ever offered environmental conditions favorable for microbial life, scientists said.


*-- French scientists slam GMO corn study --*
PARIS - A controversial study that had linked genetically modified corn to cancer in lab rats is a scientific non-event, six French scientific academies said Friday. "This work does not enable any reliable conclusion to be drawn," the joint statement of the national academies of agriculture, medicine, pharmacy, science, technology and veterinary studies said, adding publicity surrounding the publication had "spread fear among the public." Such a joint statement is an extremely rare event in French science, Radio France Internationale reported. The statement was prompted by a paper released in September that said rats fed genetically modified corn developed by U.S. chemical giant Monsanto or given doses of Monsanto's Roundup herbicide developed tumors. Critics accused the author of the paper, Gilles-Eric Seralini of the University of Caen, of using the media to increase the impact of his study and have alleged statistical bias in his experiments. "Given the numerous gaps in methods and interpretation, the data presented in this article cannot challenge previous studies which have concluded that [Monsanto's] corn is harmless from the health point of view, as are, more generally, genetically modified plants that have been authorized for consumption by animals and humans," the academies' statement said. Two official investigations into the study are to be unveiled next Monday.


*-- Ancient Roman catacomb found -- by a cat --*
ROME - Two Italian men chasing a wayward cat in Rome say the animal led them into a previously undiscovered 2,000-year-old tomb full of bones. Mirko Curti said he and a friend were following the cat when it scampered towards a low rock cliff near his home in a residential area of the city. "The cat managed to get into a grotto and we followed the sound of its meowing," he said. In an opening in the cliff the two men found niches dug into the rock similar to those used by the Romans to hold funeral urns, and also saw human bones scattered on the floor, the British newspaper The Guardian reported Thursday. Archaeologists who examined the site said the tomb probably dated from the 1st century B.C. and the 2nd century A.D. Heavy rains earlier in the week probably caused rocks concealing the entrance to the tomb to crumble, they said.

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