Federal law enforcement agents on December 6 arrested a Brooklyn Internet merchant who mistreated customers because he thought their online complaints raised the profile of his business in Google searches. The merchant, Vitaly Borker, 34, who operates a Web site called decormyeyes.com, was charged with one count each of mail fraud, wire fraud, making interstate threats and cyberstalking. The mail fraud and wire fraud charges each carry a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. The stalking and interstate threats charges carry a maximum sentence of five years. In an arraignment in United States District Court in Lower Manhattan, Judge Michael H. Dolinger denied Mr. Borker’s request for bail, stating that the defendant was either “verging on psychotic” or had “an explosive personality.” Mr. Borker will be detained until a preliminary hearing, scheduled for Dec. 20. In an interview with a reporter from The New York Times in October, Mr. Borker maintained that scaring Clarabelle Rodriguez — and dozens of other customers in the last three years — enhanced the standing of DecorMyEyes in Internet searches on Google. That was because Google’s algorithm, he claimed, was unable to distinguish between praise and complaints. All of the negative postings translated into buzz, he said, which helped push DecorMyEyes higher in search results and increased his sales. It is unclear if Mr. Borker was right about the cause of DecorMyEyes’ surprisingly strong showing in online searches. But Google published a post on its official blog stating that it had changed its search formula so that companies were penalized if they provided customers with what it called “an extremely poor user experience.” http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/07/business/07borker.html?_r=1

Shakespeare was by no means the first to suggest that 'all that glitters/glisters is not gold'. The 12th century French theologian Alain de Lille wrote "Do not hold everything gold that shines like gold". In 1553, we have Thomas Becon, in The relikes of Rome: "All is not golde that glistereth." George Turberville, in Tragical tales, (and other poems), 1587, wrote that "All is not gold that glistringly appeere." The 'glitters' version of this phrase is so long established as to be perfectly acceptable - especially as 'glisters' and 'glitters' mean the same thing and are essentially synonymous. Only the most pedantic insist that 'all that glisters is not gold' is correct and that 'all that glitters is not gold', being a misquotation, should be shunned. John Dryden was quite happy to use 'glitters' as long ago as 1687, in his poem, The Hind and the Panther: For you may palm upon us new for old: All, as they say, that glitters, is not gold. http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/28450.html

For months, the secret talks unfolding between Taliban and Afghan leaders to end the war appeared to be showing promise, if only because of the appearance of a certain insurgent leader at one end of the table: Mullah Akhtar Muhammad Mansour, one of the most senior commanders in the Taliban movement. But now, it turns out, Mr. Mansour was apparently not Mr. Mansour at all. In an episode that could have been lifted from a spy novel, United States and Afghan officials now say the Afghan man was an impostor, and high-level discussions conducted with the assistance of NATO appear to have achieved little. “It’s not him,” said a Western diplomat in Kabul intimately involved in the discussions. “And we gave him a lot of money.” American officials confirmed Monday that they had given up hope that the Afghan was Mr. Mansour, or even a member of the Taliban leadership. NATO and Afghan officials said they held three meetings with the man, who traveled from in Pakistan, where Taliban leaders have taken refuge. The fake Taliban leader even met with President Hamid Karzai, having been flown to Kabul on a NATO aircraft and ushered into the presidential palace, officials said. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/23/world/asia/23kabul.html?scp=1&sq=taliban%20impostor&st=cse

Top ten invasive species Asian Carp, Rabbits, Cane Toads, Kudzu, Gray Squirrel, Killer Bees, Starlings, Northern Snakehead, Zebra Mussels, Burmese Python
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/completelist/0,29569,1958657,00.html#ixzz17Scr3d00

The Sifto salt mine in Goderich, Ontario is the largest in the world. It extends five kilometres under Lake Huron. A team that was originally drilling for oil in the area first struck rock salt in 1866. The rock salt, discovered more than 300 metres feet beneath Goderich Harbour, was the first recorded discovery of a salt bed in North America. The entrance to what was once a vast, tropical sea that lay in the middle of North America, over four hundred million years ago during the Silurian period. As the continent shifted away from the equator the sea disappeared but the salty deposits on its bottom remained. http://www.cbc.ca/geologic/field_guide/gl_goderich.html?dataPath=/photogallery/documentaries/gallery_641/xml/gallery_641.xml

The existence of rock salt in the Detroit area was discovered in 1895. By 1906, the Detroit Salt and Manufacturing Company was ready to tackle the chore of creating a local rock salt mine. The struggle down to the salt beds is one of the most impressive engineering accomplishments of its time. Competitive and economic pressure forced International Salt to close the mine in 1983. Two years after the closure, Crystal Mines, Inc., purchased the mine as a potential storage site. After this venture failed, the current owner, Detroit Salt Company, LLC, purchased the mine in 1997, and began salt production in the fall of 1998. See much more of the company's history at: http://www.detroitsalt.com/about-history.htm

For the first time researchers have attempted to chart the evolutionary history of the brain across different groups of mammals over 60 million years. They have discovered that there are huge variations in how the brains of different groups of mammals have evolved over that time. They also suggest that there is a link between the sociality of mammals and the size of their brains relative to body size, according to a study published in the PNAS journal. The research team analysed available data on the brain size and body size of more than 500 species of living and fossilised mammals. It found that the brains of monkeys grew the most over time, followed by horses, dolphins, camels and dogs. The study shows that groups of mammals with relatively bigger brains tend to live in stable social groups. The brains of more solitary mammals, such as cats, deer and rhino, grew much more slowly during the same period. http://www.ox.ac.uk/media/news_stories/2010/102311.html