A planet with two suns

The existence of a world with a double sunset, as portrayed in the film Star Wars more than 30 years ago, is now scientific fact. NASA's Kepler mission has made the first unambiguous detection of a circumbinary planet, a planet orbiting two stars -- 200 light-years from Earth.

The planet is cold, gaseous and not thought to harbor life, but its discovery demonstrates the diversity of planets in our galaxy. Previous research has hinted at the existence of circumbinary planets, but clear confirmation proved elusive. Kepler detected such a planet, known as Kepler-16b, by observing transits, where the brightness of a parent star dims from the planet crossing in front of it.

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Panasonic's "Evolta" swim robot

Panasonic's "Evolta" bike robot, powered by the company's Evolta rechargable batteries, is demonstrated during a news conference in Tokyo September 15, 2011. The company said three types of Evolta robots, developed to swim, bike and run, will challenge to complete an Ironman triathlon course in Hawaii, a total of about 230 km, within one week or 168 hours from October 24, 2011, powered by three AA-size rechargeable Evolta batteries.

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Woman with the longest fingernails

Chris Walton has been working on her fingernails for 18 years. And it's finally paying off.

Guinness World Records named Walton the woman with the longest fingernails on Wednesday, introducing "The Dutchess" and her nails at an event in New York City. Walton's nails measure 10-feet-2-inches on her left hand and 9-feet-7-inches on her right hand. She said she does her own nails and makeup and does household chores even though her nails twist and turn.

The previous record holder for longest nails was Lee Redmond of Salt Lake City, according to the Guinness World Records website. Redmond's nails measured a total 28 feet in 2008 but she lost her nails in a car crash the following year, the site said.

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No more cigarettes for smoking Malaysian orangutan

A captive orangutan often spotted smoking cigarettes given to her by zoo visitors is being forced to kick the habit.

Government authorities seized the adult ape named Shirley from a state-run zoo in Malaysia's southern Johor state last week after she and several other animals there were deemed to be living in poor conditions.

Shirley is now being quarantined at another zoo in a neighbouring state and is expected to be sent to a Malaysian wildlife center on Borneo Island within weeks.

Shirley is not being provided with any more cigarettes because smoking is not normal behaviour for orangutans. She is not addicted, but she might have formed a habit after mimicking human beings who were smoking around her.

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Eating chocolate linked to reduced heart disease risk

Researchers have found that higher levels of chocolate consumption have been associated with a 37% reduction in the risk of developing cardiovascular disease, 31% reduction in diabetes and a 29% reduction for stroke.

Scientists at the University of Cambridge in the UK analyzed the results of seven studies involving more than 114,000 participants. The studies looked at consumption of dark and milk chocolate and included chocolate bars, chocolate drinks and chocolate snacks.

Previous research has shown that cocoa and cacao products appear to have a positive antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effect on heart health. The Cambridge analysis found a significant association between increased consumption of these products and reduced risk for any cardiovascular disease, stroke and diabetes.

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World’s largest living crocodile

A giant saltwater crocodile weighing more than a tonne has been captured in a remote southern Philippine village following a series of attacks on humans and animals.

It is believed responsible for eating at least one fisherman, but this monster crocodile has finally been caught by 100 very cautious men.

Measuring 21ft from snout to tail, the massive creature is the largest crocodile captured alive in recent years.

The beast was caught, after a three-week hunt, in a creek in the Philippines by villagers who had lived in fear of it for more than 20 years.

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Oldest woolly rhino discovered

A woolly rhino fossil dug up on the Tibetan Plateau is believed to be the oldest specimen of its kind yet found.

The creature lived some 3.6 million years ago - long before similar beasts roamed northern Asia and Europe in the ice ages that gripped those regions.

The discovery team says the existence of this ancient rhino supports the idea that the frosty Tibetan foothills of the Himalayas were the evolutionary cradle for these later animals.

The rhino was found in Tibet's Zanda Basin. The area is rich in fossil beds, and this specimen was unearthed along with examples of extinct horse, antelope, snow leopard, badger and many other kinds of mammals.

It has been put in a new species classification - Coelodonta thibetana.

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Fish found inside duck egg

In 2006, the group found the duck egg in a small pond on a field trip to the French Alps and noticed something moving inside it. When they cracked open the shell, three live minnows were inside. There were no cracks in the egg.

Biologists suggest that the egg must have fallen into minnow-populated water, but there’s still no telling how the fish could have gotten in there.

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World's most accurate clock

An atomic clock at the UK's National Physical Laboratory (NPL) has the best long-term accuracy of any in the world, research has found.

The clock would lose or gain less than a second in some 138 million years.

The UK is among the handful of nations providing a "standard second" that keeps the world on time.

However, the international race for higher accuracy is always on, meaning the record may not stand for long.

The NPL's CsF2 clock is a "caesium fountain" atomic clock, in which the "ticking" is provided by the measurement of the energy required to change a property of caesium atoms known as "spin".

By international definition, it is the electromagnetic waves required to accomplish this "spin flip" that are measured; when 9,192,631,770 peaks and troughs of these waves go by, one standard second passes.

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