New planets discovered
Researchers have found up to six new, low-mass planets orbiting sun-like stars. The discoveries came through combining data from telescopes in Hawaii and Australia. Three of the planets orbit the star 61 Virginis, which is around 28 light-years away from earth.
“These detections indicate that low-mass planets are quite common around nearby stars. The discovery of potentially habitable nearby worlds may be just a few years away,” says planet-hunter Steven Vogt from the University of California, Santa Cruz.
'It is bitterly disappointing for us, but it will inform the way we go forward'
Dr Sheena McCormack, chief investigator of a trial that showed a microbicide gel does not protect women from infection with HIV
A hot drop to stop diabetes?
Could drinking coffee and tea reduce the risk of developing type-II diabetes? A new meta-analysis of 18 studies, published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, suggests a link.
Based on studies involving more than 500,000 participants, with more than 21,000 new cases of diabetes mellitus (DM), the authors concluded that “high intake of coffee, decaffeinated coffee, and/or tea is associated with a material reduction in the risk of new-onset DM. If such beneficial effects were observed in interventional trials to be real, the implications for the millions of individuals who have DM, or who are at future risk of developing it, would be substantial.” Fancy a cuppa now?
By numbers
21,000 The number of genes in the panda genome, details of which were published at the weekend in the journal
Nature.
Claire O’Connell email: 1000.claire@gmail.com