London, July 26 : A team of European scientists working with COROT (Convection Rotation and planetary Transits) has discovered an exoplanet that seems to have a surprisingly powerful influence on its parent star, forcing the star to rotate at exactly the same rate as it orbits.

The planet’s day is also the same length, so the pair are fixed in a face-to-face whirl.

According to a report in New Scientist, the puzzle is how this planet, called COROT-Exo-4b, could have so dominated the vastly larger star, which is bigger than our Sun.

The new planet was discovered by the European COROT satellite, launched in 2006, which searches for transits – the telltale dimming of stars caused by planets passing in front of them.

London, July 26 : Chip maker Intel predicts that the world of mobile internet devices is set to explode in the short span on the next four years.

Intel has based its prediction on research it has carried out.

According to the data collected, portable net-enabled devices are set to grow to 1.2 billion by 2012.

"The demand is there and the need is there and our technology can meet those needs," the BBC quoted Intel''s Gadi Singer, head of Intel''s mobility group, as saying.

London, July 26 : The humble sound of a lawnmower is Britons’ favourite summer sound, says a new poll.

The seasonal noise beat the sound of pub garden chatter into second place.

Waves breaking on to a beach came third in the survey of 2,500 Britons.

The sound of sports such as people playing cricket and tennis came fourth and fifth on the list.

Animal sounds were also prominent with seagulls cawing continuing the summer beach association, while pigeons cooing also made the list.

Surprisingly only one in ten associated the sound of rain with summer.

London, July 26 : An Indian chef has failed to land a place in the Guinness Book of World records for the “world’s hottest curry” with his creation Bollywood Burner.

London, July 26 : British Prime Minister Gordon Brown was told that he has only 42 days to turn around Labour’s fortunes or face an autumn leadership crisis.

The warning came after the party slumped to one of its all-time lows with a crushing by-election defeat.

Labour plunged into turmoil when it was trounced in Thursday’s Glasgow East by-election.

The party’s 13,507 majority was annihilated by the Scottish National Party, which took the seat with a 22 per cent swing.

London, July 26 : Scientists have said that microbes from Venus could actually be blown into the Earth’s atmosphere by solar winds.

According to a report by BBC News, this has been suggested by two scientists at the Cardiff Centre for Astrobiology in the UK.

Their findings follow analysis of data from the European Space Agency’s (ESA’s) Venus Express probe, launched in 2005.

Previous research has considered the possibility of micro organisms existing in Venus’s atmosphere despite extreme temperatures on its surface.