Missing plane MH370: Malaysia mystery ‘may not be solved’

Malaysia has warned that the reasons for the Malaysia Airlines plane's disappearance may never be known, as Prime Minister Najib Razak heads to Australia for talks on the search. Malaysia's police chief said that their investigation could "go on and on". Ten planes and nine ships are searching the southern Indian Ocean. A UK submarine has also joined the hunt. Flight MH370 disappeared on 8 March as it was travelling from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. It was carrying 239 people. Mr Najib will arrive in Perth, Western Australia, on Wednesday evening. He will visit the new Joint Agency Coordination Centre (JACC), where the southern Indian Ocean search is being led. He will meet Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott, and retired air chief marshal Angus Houston, who is leading the JACC. 'Isolated thunderstorms' Teams have been searching for the plane for more than three weeks Meanwhile, Malaysian police chief Khalid Abu Bakar said the criminal investigation could "go on and on and on. We have to clear every little thing." "At the end of the investigations, we may not even know the real cause. We may not even know the reason for this incident," he said. He added that police had "cleared" all the passengers of the four key areas being investigated: hijacking, sabotage, and psychological and personal problems, Malaysia's Bernama news agency reported. British submarine HMS Tireless will also assist search efforts Khalid Abu Bakar added that more than 170 interviews had been conducted with family members of the pilots and crew members, and that even cargo and food served on the plane were being investigated in case of sabotage. Wednesday's search area is around 221,000 sq km (85,300 sq miles), but cloudy conditions, "sea fog and isolated thunderstorms" will reduce visibility for search planes, JACC said in a statement. The British submarine HMS Tireless has also arrived in the southern Indian Ocean. It will soon be joined by Royal Navy ship HMS Echo. The private jet of film director Peter Jackson has also joined the search. On Tuesday, ACM Houston said it was the most challenging operation he had ever seen, and warned that search efforts "could drag on for a long time". "The last known position [of the plane] was a long, long way from where the aircraft appears to have gone," complicating the task, he said. Several floating objects have been found in recent days, but none is believed to belong to the missing plane.

Do coffee and tea really dehydrate us?

We’re told that tea and coffee dehydrates us, says Claudia Hammond, but what’s the evidence say? Every day people around the globe drink 1.6 billion cups of coffeeand around twice as many cups of tea. They enjoy the taste and the fact that the caffeine wakes them up. But when we’re exhorted to drink six or eight glasses of water a day(a disputed figure that I’ve discussed previously), it’s usually emphasised that drinks like coffee and tea don’t count towards your daily liquid total because they’re dehydrating. Or so we’re told. What’s the evidence? Although tea and coffee contain many different substances the one on which most research focuses is caffeine. Even then there is so little research on the topic, that one of the most frequently mentioned studies was conducted way back in 1928with a sample of just three people. The three men were studied over the course of two winters. Sometimes they were required to drink four cups of coffee a day; sometimes they drank mainly tea and at other times they abstained or drank water laced with pure caffeine. Meanwhile the volume of their urine was measured regularly. The authors concluded that if the men consumed caffeine-laced water after a two month period of abstinence from both coffee and tea, the volume of their urine increased by 50%, but when they drank coffee regularly again they became inured to its diuretic effects. Very large doses of caffeine are known to increase the blood flow to the kidneys and to inhibit the absorption of sodium which explains why it could act as a diuretic, dealing with the sodium which hasn’t been absorbed. But the exact mechanism is still a matter of debate. View image of Do caffeinated drinks affect the water intake we're told to be drinking every day? (Thinkstock) But when you look at the studies of more realistic quantities of caffeine, the diuretic effect is not nearly so clear. A review of 10 studies by Lawrence Armstrong from the University of Connecticut concluded that caffeine is a mild diuretic at most, with 12 out of 15 comparisons showing that people urinated the same amount, regardless of whether the water they drank contained added caffeine or not. So why do so many people think they need the loo more often when they’ve been drinking tea or coffee? As the review indicates, most studies give people pure caffeine added to water, rather than cups of actual tea or coffee as you might drink at home. Is there something about the combination of substances contained in coffee and tea that make the difference? In a rare study where people drank nothing but tea for the 12 hour duration of the trial, there was no difference in hydration levels between them and the people who drank the same quantity of boiled water. When it comes to the consumption of coffee, one study did find a 41% increase in urine, along with a rise in the excretion of sodium and potassium. But these participants had abstained from caffeine before the study, so this doesn’t tell us what would happen in people who are accustomed to drinking coffee. View image of Whether you regularly drink your tea from a pot - or not - evidence that it dehydrates you is conflicting (Beverley Goodwin/Flickr) A second study found no difference in hydrationbetween those drinking water or coffee, leaving us with conflicting findings. Then came new research earlier this year from Sophie Killer at Birmingham University in the UK, who not only measured the volume of urine, but tested their blood for signs of kidney function as wellas calculating the total amount of water in the body. The men in the study drank four cups of coffee a day, far more than the average coffee-drinker. Yet there was no evidence they were any more dehydrated than those who drank water alone. This research was funded by the Institute for Scientific Information on Coffee, whose members are coffee companies, but it has been published in a peer-reviewed journal and the authors confirm that the Institute played no role in gathering or analysing the data or writing up the research. So although we might notice needing the loo more when we’ve been drinking coffee, the mistake is basing our observations on a comparison with the time we’ve drunk nothing, not with a similar amount of water. If you chose a glass of water instead of a cup of tea, you’d probably see the same effect.

Barcelona given transfer ban by Fifa

The Catalan club cannot buy players until the summer of 2015 after the world governing body imposed a transfer ban for the next two windows. They have also been fined 450,000 Swiss Francs (£305,000). The Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) has been sanctioned by Fifa for the same breaches. Barcelona, who will still be allowed to sell players, are hoping to sign a new goalkeeper at the end of the season, with the long-serving Victor Valdes leaving the Nou Camp at the end of his contract. The four-time European champions have been linkedwith Borussia Monchengladbach keeper Marc-Andre ter Stegen, while they agreed a deal to sign17-year-old Croatia midfielder Alen Halilovic last week. Any appeal against the ban must be lodged within three days and is not likely to be heard until April. If unsuccessful in their appeal, Barca could take the case to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, raising the possibility the Catalan club could still sign players this summer if the ban is not imposed until a final decision is made. The RFEF has been given a fine of 500,000 Swiss Francs (£340,000) and told to "regularise its regulatory framework and existing system concerning the international transfer of minors in football" within a year. Fifa rules statethat international transfers are only permitted for players over the age of 18 - unless the player in question meets one of three qualifying criteria. Under-18s can move to a club in a different country if their parents move there for non-footballing reasons, if they are from another nation within the European Union or European Economic Area and aged between 16 and 18, or if they live within 100km of the club. A Fifa investigation - centred on several players aged under 18 who were registered and played for the club between 2009 and 2013 - found that Barcelona and the RFEF were guilty of a "serious" infringement of the rules in relation to 10 players. Fifa told BBC Sport the identity of these players was confidential. Its disciplinary committee said it sought to protect the best interests of young players, even if an international transfer might be beneficial to their football careers. "On the basis of this analysis, the committee concluded that 'the interest in protecting the appropriate and healthy development of a minor as a whole must prevail over purely sporting interests'," said a Fifa statement. It is the latest off-the-field issue to trouble Barcelona this season. Earlier this year, the Catalan club were accused by the Spanish authorities of tax evasionrelating to the £50m purchase of Brazil forward Neymar. A criminal investigation is under way, despite Barca making a "voluntary contribution" of more than £11m in taxes. The club's president Sandro Rosell resignedafter he was accused of misappropriating funds in the deal. Rosell and his successor Josep Maria Bartomeu insist the 22-time Spanish champions have not acted illegally.

US President Barack Obama says his embattled signature healthcare programme is "here to stay" after more than 7 million Americans signed up.

He told reporters the law, nicknamed Obamacare, represented progress and benefitted the economy. Mr Obama also lashed out at repeated conservative efforts to repeal or defund the law, calling it "troubling". There would be additional challenges to implementing the law, he said, but it was "working". An estimated 7.1 million Americans signed up for coverage to avoid penalties prior to Monday's deadline for doing so, exceeding initial projections. "This law has made our healthcare system a lot better," Mr Obama said at the White House on Tuesday, adding that it would lower overall healthcare costs. Though the reform had at times been "contentious and confusing", he said, "that's part of what change looks like in a democracy. "Change is hard. Fixing what is broken is hard." Controversial law State and federally-run marketplace websites allow residents to choose between several private insurance options The Democrat leader has battled political opposition to Obamacare - officially the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act - for years. Republicans - who see it as an inappropriate government intrusion into the healthcare industry and an affront to personal liberty - are not expected to relent in their opposition to the law. The law also remains controversial among the American public, as some people have seen their insurance costs rise or their old plans cancelled, and others object to having to purchase insurance at all. The Republicans hope to tap into voter discontent with the law in November's midterm elections. The 2010 law is intended to extend health insurance to the roughly 48 million Americans who do not receive it through their employers, the government, or a privately purchased plan. It also aims to slow the growth in the cost of healthcare and requires private plans to meet a certain level of coverage. The federal Healthcare.gov and similar marketplace websites run by some states are a key element of the law, providing a clearing-house for people to purchase health insurance for themselves and their families, often with generous subsidies.