Extreme Solar Systems IV: planetary snippets

Still at the Extreme Solar Systems conference in Santorini where it has cooled off a bit.
One of the locals assures me this is the worst since the great heat wave of 1916 and that I should come back in october... must make the most of this once-per-century opportunity.

So, more planet news...

There are a couple of more transiting planets in the pipeline - sounds like there is another hot Neptune in the pipeline, and I hear the TrES group found another bloated (1.7 Jovian radii?!) hot Jupiter which was first announced at another meeting a week or two ago.

The COROT people are being very coy, won't even confirm their announced sensitivity, sounds like they have looked at the first data set but not pipeline reduced it, but there is buzz that maybe they think they have something interesting; this is probably overinterpreting natural scientific caution, but honestly, why be so coy if you aren't sitting on something big!

Pulsar planets are not done yet; the numbers on B1620-26c keep getting better, but I am sworn to secrecy and can not discuss the details.
I would not be surprised if there were more pulsar planets discovered in the next year or two, if GBT comes back to life on schedule.

Lot of excitement in the white dwarf hunts: there are now 9 nearby white dwarfs with confirmed warm debris disks, which must be from asteroidal/cometary disruption, and to get an asteroid down that close you need a planet to scatter it.
Hints that one of the known disk WDs may have something more going on around it. No idea if/when an announcement will be made on that.
Gaensicke et al gave a nice talk on the two hot debris disks found around white dwarfs - similar to the warm debris disks but with optical emission from hot gas in orbit, rather than infrared emission from dust.

Imaging surveys looking for direct detection of Jovians around white dwarfs are still coming up blank, but statistically they must succeed soon, since we know from observations of giant stars the planets are there.
And of course Fergal Mullally announced the candidate detection using pulsating white dwarf timing. Sweet.

There was another announcement of a novel planetary system detection (looks quite robust), which is in press with Nature - should be out in a few weeks.