Meanwhile in … the Cook Islands, the country is thinking about a name change.
In the Cook Islands, the country is thinking about a name change. The Cook Islands are currently named after the English explorer Captain James Cook, who encountered the islands in 1773. But a growing movement seeks to change that by finding a Maori-language name for the islands to honor the heritage of their indigenous peoples. More than 60 possibilities have been submitted to a newly created name change committee, which hopes to have a shortlist by April. (The Guardian)
In cyberspace, Rotten Tomatoes stopped trolls from review-bombing movies. The popular movie review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes used to allow site users to rate movies before they were released. Sometimes, however, this feature allowed large numbers of internet trolls to “bomb” movie scores by piling on negative ratings without having seen the movie first. (That practice was usually employed when a movie’s lead characters were played by women or people of color.) To keep audience scores useful and constructive, the site turned off pre-release ratings while continuing to count the number of people who say they are interested in seeing movies. (The Washington Post)
In the southern highlands of Mars, scientists confirmed the existence of a system of liquid water that once flowed on the red planet. Researchers used information from the European Space Agency’s Mars Express mission to identify a system of underground, interconnected lakes. The researchers’ findings support predictions of water systems from earlier computer modeling. The lakes would have existed 3 billion to 4 billion years ago, when Mars’ atmosphere was thicker and could trap water on the planet’s surface. (The Independent)
