Scientists

A new technique for creating artificial blood vessels outside the body using a patient's own stem cells has offered hope for people with heart disease.

One in four men and one in six women in the UK will die from heart disease and around 300,000 people a year suffer a heart attack. The disease is caused by a build-up of fatty deposits in blood vessels supplying the heart muscle with blood. If these are blocked completely the heart is starved of oxygen and stops.

Heart bypass surgery involves taking a length of artery from elsewhere in the body - usually the chest or leg - and using it to replace the furred-up heart artery.

Scientists have identified a genetic factor that is linked with a 20% to 30% increased risk of developing bowel cancer. Although very rare genetic mutations have been associated with the disease previously, the newly identified mutation - which is carried by over half the general population - is the most common yet discovered.

Researchers do not yet know which gene or genes are affected, let alone how they might cause the disease, but they say the finding will help to intensify screening of people most at risk for the disease.

A leading team of planet-seekers has announced the discovery of 28 new planets outside solar system, increasing the number of known exoplanets to 236, at the annual meeting of American Astronomical Society in Honolulu, Monday.

Jason Wright of the University of California, a member of the team, said at the meeting: "Taken together, in the last year our teams have increased the number of known planets by 12 percent and shown that at least 30 percent of stars known to host planets have more than one object orbiting." 

The planets are among 37 new objects spotted within the past year. Seven of the objects are failed stars called brown dwarfs, with masses that dwarf the largest, Jupiter-sized planets but too small to sustain the nuclear reactions necessary for stellar ignition.