Google to show restaurant menu, prices in search results

Google says it is working to show menu of a restaurant, complete with the prices, on the first page of the Google search when a web user looks for information on a restaurant. The company believes it will help web users make a more informed decision before they reserve a table for dinner or lunch.

"Next time you're planning a brunch or a date night, check to make sure the menu has something to satisfy everyone in your group, without having to browse through several restaurants' websites. Just search Google to show you the menu for the eatery you're considering and you can see it right on the top of your search page — complete with tabs for different parts of the menu (like appetizers, brunch or dinner) and, often, prices — before you make your reservation," the company noted in a post made on Google+.

It added that currently the feature was only available in the US.

In the last few years, Google has significantly tweaked its search page to show more and more information to web users. Earlier, Google had rolled out a feature called information graph. This feature uses snippets of information from websites like Wikipedia and IMDB to give users a concise summary on the topic, person, film and place etc they are searching for.

"When Google started, the idea was to index information and find keywords. Now it is about knowledge. But knowledge is a big fuzzy word. Computers find it difficult to understand context. In 2010, we acquired Metaweb, which worked on building large collaborative knowledge base. Internally, we have a number of solutions to improve search results. One of them is Knowledge Graph, comprising information about millions of interconnected entities and their characteristics. With Knowledge Graph we are moving to away from (search) strings to things," he said.

Currently, it is not clear how Google is acquiring the data that powers its menu feature. Also, the data is not always correct.

Search Engine Land, a website that extensively tracks Google, found that menu showed for Jones, a restaurant in Philadelphia in the US, was not entirely right. "For the record, Google actually seems to be getting the details wrong. In looking at the Jones website, this (the menu showed at Google page) looks like their 'all day' menu, (and) not the brunch menu (the web user) searched for," noted the website.

Crocodiles can climb trees: researchers

Most people entering crocodile territory keep a wary eye out on water and land, but research suggests they need to look up.

Though the reptiles lack obvious physical features to suggest this is possible, crocodiles in fact climb trees all the way to the crowns, according to University of Tennessee researcher Vladimir Dinets.

Researchers in the climbing study observed crocodiles in Australia, Africa and North America. The study documented crocodiles climbing as high as six feet off the ground. But Dinets said he received anecdotal reports from people who spend time around crocodiles of the reptiles climbing almost 30 feet.

Dinets said crocodiles lack the toe and foot structure that would be expected of a climber. However, smaller and juvenile crocodiles in particular were observed climbing vertically while larger ones tended to climb angled trunks and branches, all of which is a measure of the reptiles' spectacular agility, he said.

"They just go slowly," he said. "Eventually they get there."

The finding was reported in January in Herpetology Notes in collaboration with Adam Britton from Charles Darwin University in Australia and Matthew Shirley from the University of Florida.

The researchers believe the crocodiles climb to keep a lookout on their territory and to warm themselves in the sun.

"The most frequent observations of tree-basking were in areas where there were few places to bask on the ground, implying that the individuals needed alternatives for regulating their body temperature," the authors wrote.

"Likewise, their wary nature suggests that climbing leads to improved site surveillance of potential threats and prey."

People who spend time around crocodiles have known about the climbing ability for decades, Dinets said, but this study is the first to thoroughly examine the climbing and basking behavior.

Dinets also was co-author of a widely reported study in 2013 that demonstrated crocodiles used sticks and twigs to hunt, balancing nest-building material on their snouts just above the water line to lure birds. The crocodiles lay in wait for hours and lunged when a bird ventured near.

That finding was the first reported use of  tools by any reptile and the first known case of predators timing the use of lures to a seasonal behavior in their prey, according to a University of Tennessee press release at the time.

The latest climbing study suggests paleontologists studying extinct species should be cautious about drawing conclusions from fossils, adds Dinets.

"If crocodiles were extinct and you only knew them from fossils, you wouldn't be able to guess they climb trees because they don't have any physical adaptations," Dinets said.

"Assumptions based on fossils, he said, can be "far less correct than people think."

Death prediction by Blood test

LONDON: Researchers from Finland and Estonia have identified four biomarkers that can help identify people at high risk of dying from any disease within five years. This was done after screening blood samples from over 17,000 healthy people for over 100 different biomolecules. 

The health status of these study volunteers was followed for several years. The researchers looked for measures in the blood that could reflect who had died within the following 5 years after blood samples were taken. 

"What is especially interesting is these biomarkers reflect the risk for dying from very different types of diseases such as heart disease or cancer. They seem to be signs of a general frailty in the body. Next we aim to study whether some kind of connecting factor between these biomarkers can be identified,'' said researcher Johannes Kettunen. 

In a study published in PLOS Medicine, researchers describe identification of four such biomarkers of death. Of these, albumin was the only one previously linked with mortality. All these molecules are normally present in everyone's blood. 

The novel biomarkers helped detect individuals at much higher risk of dying during five-year follow-up. The measures were independent of well-known risk factors such as age, smoking, drinking, obesity, blood pressure and cholesterol. The result did not change even when only apparently healthy people were examined. 

"We believe that in the future these measures can be used to identify people who appear healthy but in fact have serious underlying illnesses and guide them to proper treatment. More studies are, however, needed before these findings can be implemented in clinical practice," Kettunen said.