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Washington, Feb 26 - A team of scientists has discovered the brightest quasar in the early universe, powered by the most massive black hole yet known at that time.

The quasar SDSS J0100+2802, which is the one with the most massive black hole and the highest luminosity among all known distant quasars, marks an important step in understanding how quasars, the most powerful objects in the universe, have evolved from the earliest epoch, only 900 million years after the Big Bang, which is thought to have happened 13.7 billion years ago.

The discovery of this ultraluminous quasar, by astronomers from Peking University in China and from the University of Arizona, also presents a major puzzle to the theory of black hole growth at early universe, according to researcher Xiaohui Fan.

London, Feb 26 - The two top HSBC chiefs have reportedly apologised for "unacceptable" practices at its Swiss bank that helped clients evade millions of dollars in tax.

Washington, Feb 26 - Plants can help prevent liver damage in women caused by fat accumulated during menopause, claims a new study.

Researchers at the University of Georgia have shown in studies of post-menopausal animals that a mix of phytochemicals, along with vitamin D, may help protect the liver against inflammation caused by the accumulation of fat.

Study's lead author Colette Miller said that women going through menopause have an increased tendency to store fat in their liver. They also have increases in visceral fat-the fat around their organs-where inflammation also occurs.

London, Feb 26 - KFC has launched a unique coffee cup, that you can munch up, after finishing your coffee, and it's made of white chocolate.

The new offering of the giant food chain, called Scoff-ee Cup, has been made from a unique biscuit, wrapped in sugar paper and lined with an indulgent layer of chocolate, which keeps the coffee hot and the cup crispy, the Mirror reported.

After a while, the chocolate lining begins to melt so one has to literally eat the cup up.

Brandy Wright of The Robin Collective, who were partners in the creation, said that the cups not only taste amazing, but they smell delicious too, as they are infused with mood-boosting scents, including freshly cut grass and coconut sun cream.

Washington, Feb 26 - A new study has challenged the widely held view that communities of rats pushed plague to Europe in 14th century by suggesting that rodent with a much cuddlier reputation, the gerbil, may have played host to the fleas carrying the disease for hundreds of years.

A team of scientists from Norway and Switzerland say that they think the plague bacteria could have sprung from populations of the great gerbil and other rodent species in Central Asia, the CNN reported.

Researcher Nils Christian Stenseth of the University of Oslo said that if they're right, they'll have to rewrite that part of history.

Washington, Feb 26 - Scientists have successfully grown leg muscle from engineered cells in a dish.

Researchers from Italy, Israel and the United Kingdom teamed up to generate mature, functional skeletal muscles in mice using a new approach for tissue engineering to produce a graft. The subsequent graft was implanted close to a normal, contracting skeletal muscle where the new muscle was nurtured and grown. In time, the method could allow for patient-specific treatments for a large number of muscle disorders.