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Third puffed-up planet

The discovery of yet another bloated extrasolar planet was announced on Monday, making it the third to be found. WASP-1b was spotted by the Super Wide Angle Search for Planets, led by Don Pollacco of Queen’s University in Belfast, UK, and lies about 1000 light years away. The planet has slightly less mass than Jupiter but is about 1.3 times its diameter.

Keep on rollin’

They were meant to last 90 days. More than 900 days later, NASA’s twin Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity are still going strong. After an 18-month trek, Opportunity neared the edge of the 60-metre-deep Victoria crater this week. Until now, the deepest crater examined by Opportunity was the Endurance crater, which is 7 metres deep.

Oil friction

Russia has blocked a project to mine oil and gas on environmental grounds. Sited in disputed territory in the Pacific Ocean near Russia’s Sakhalin Island, the Sakhalin 2 project is under joint development by Shell and the Japanese firms Mitsui and Mitsubishi. The site promises to yield 1 billion barrels of oil and 500 billion cubic metres of natural gas, and was due to open in 2008.

Cancer vaccine go-ahead

A vaccine providing 100 per cent protection against cervical cancer and the genital warts that precede it received approval for sale throughout Europe on 22 September. Gardasil, sold by Merck in the US and Sanofi Pasteur in Europe, blocks the human papilloma virus that triggers genital warts and cancers of the cervix, vulva and vagina.

Make HIV tests routine

Family doctors in the US should routinely offer HIV tests to anyone aged between 13 and 64, the US Centers for Disease Control recommended on 21 September. The aim is to find and treat the estimated 250,000 Americans who don’t know they are infected with HIV (see New ÐÓ°ÉÔ­´´, 22 July, p 8).