Ramallah - US president-elect Barack Obama telephoned Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and promised him that his administration would continue efforts to advance the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians.

Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said in a statement sent to reporters overnight that in Tuesday's telephone conversation, the first since he was elected, Obama stressed his support for the establishment of a Palestinian state existing side by side with Israel.

Washington, Nov 19: A team of scientists is developing a cutting-edge trash dryer for NASA, which would take care of rotten and smelly space waste.

NASA will need a new solid waste strategy before it sends astronauts on extended missions to Mars or an outpost on the moon.

In space, waste can’t simply be “thrown out.”

In the cramped living quarters of a space station, garbage can pile up, spoil and become a health hazard for astronauts.

If astronauts place it outside the airlock, it will orbit alongside their spacecraft. If they eject it away from the spacecraft, they might encounter it again later. Or, even worse, it could contaminate another planet.

Washington, Nov 19 : Sportspeople, who are sponsored by the alcohol industry, are more likely to engage in binge drinking than those with no alcohol sponsors, according to a new study.

This is due to the fact that apart from sponsoring payment of competition fees and the supply of sports kit, almost half of the sponsorship deals included free or discounted alcohol for sporting functions and post-match celebrations.

"Alcohol consumption is a leading cause of mortality, responsible for 9.2pct of the disease burden in developed countries," said the study''s author, Dr Kerry O''Brien, who is based in Manchester''s School of Psychological Sciences.

Washington, Nov 19 : A long lost group of primates not seen alive in 85 years has now been discovered by a research led by a Texas A&M University anthropologist.

Called pygmy tarsiers, the furry Furby/gremlin-looking creatures about the size of a small mouse and weighing less than 2 ounces, were lost in oblivion since they were last collected for a museum in 1921.

While a large number of scientists thought they were extinct, two Indonesian scientists trapping rats in the highlands of Sulawesi accidentally trapped and killed a pygmy tarsier in 2000.

In late August, Sharon Gursky-Doyen and graduate student Nanda Grow, along with a team of locals trapped three of the nocturnal creatures in Indonesia.

Washington, Nov 19 : A revised theory by a group of 10 prominent scientists has suggested that the level of globe-warming carbon dioxide (CO2) in the air has already reached the danger zone, and the levels must decline, not just stabilize.

According to the scientists, the CO2 has probably already reached a point where world climate will change disastrously unless the level can be reduced in coming decades.

Washington, Nov 19 : New data from NASA’s Chandra X-Ray Observatory has suggested that the powerful black holes at the center of massive galaxies and galaxy clusters act as hearts to the systems.

According to the data, black holes can regulate their own growth by pumping energy out at regular intervals.

The gravitational pull of black holes is so strong that not even light can escape from them. Supermassive black holes with masses of more than a billion suns have been detected at the center of large galaxies.

The material falling on the black holes causes sporadic or isolated bursts of energy, by which black holes are capable of influencing the fate of their host galaxies.