Incredible pictures of Mars - and they look surprisingly like some parts of Earth

Ever since Victorian astronomers pointed their telescopes towards Mars and wrongly believed they had discovered canals, mankind has been obsessed by the red planet.

Now these astonishing new images - captured by a European spacecraft in orbit around Mars - are helping to fuel that fascination.

They show in astonishing detail a network of giant valleys, vast plains and towering waterfalls carved into the surface of our neighbouring planet, millions of miles away.

And while Mars today appears lifeless and parched, they are a reminder of how its surface was shaped by fast flowing streams, rivers and oceans.

The pictures were captured by the European Space Agency's Mars Express Probe - a spacecraft the size of a large fridge-freezer that has been circling Mars since Christmas 2003.

Mars Express infamously gave Britain's ill-fated Beagle 2 probe a lift to Mars. While that mission ended in disaster, the Mars Express has been a fantastic success.

Over the last five years its stereo, high resolution camera has taken thousands of images of the surface, revealing the planet's awe inspiring beauty in unprecedented detail.

The latest images show the Echus Chasma, a vast valley just north of Mars equator around 62 miles long and six miles wide. The feature is cut into a high plateau and its steep-sided cliffs - some 12,000 feet high - bear a striking resemblance to the canyons of North America.

Thunderous waterfalls may have once plunged over these cliffs, from the high Lunea Planum plateau that surrounds the Echus Chasma, on to the valley floor below.

Some of the images show a five mile wide impact crater formed when asteroids - lumps of floating rock in space - smashed into Mars. Others show a 15 mile long dyke formed when molten rock, evidence of Mars's volcanic past.

At the edges of the main valley lie smaller light-coloured tributary valleys or "sapping canyons" - around six miles long and 1800 feet deep.

The Echus Chasma - described by Nasa as one of the largest water sources on the planet - is connected to a much bigger valley system called the Kasei Valles which extends thousands of miles to the north.

Both valleys are impressive - but are dwarfed by an even larger canyon which lies to the south. The Valles Marineris is four miles deep in places, around 120 miles wide and 2,500 miles long.

The images were created by combining pictures taken from different orbits. The images can be viewed from different angles in three dimensions

Mars Express launched in June 2003. The craft is a cube around 5ft by 6ft by 5ft with two 60ft long radar antennae. It is photographing the entire surface of Mars in high resolution, producing a detailed colour map of the minerals on the surface, mapping the atmosphere and probing beneath the surface using radar.

Interest in Mars is at an all time high. Nasa and ESA have announced plans to bring back rocks and soil samples from Mars, while Nasa has three probes on the planet - two rovers and its Phoenix polar lander, which arrived in May.

The Phoenix has scraped ice from beneath the surface of Mars and is analysing samples in its laboratory to see if the planet has the right chemicals needed for life.

In 2013, ESA is planning to launch ExoMars - a robotic rover than will explore the planet's surface. If successful, it will be Europe's first mission to the Martian surface.

Scientists unveiled plans on Monday to bring back rocks from the Red Planet as a preliminary step to putting a man on Mars.

Professor Monica Grady, at the Open University, co-chaired the expert panel that wrote the mission proposal.

She said it was a vital next step before considering a crewed mission.

'If you can't bring a rock back you are not going to be able to bring people back,' she said.

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Dementia patient makes 'amazing' progress after using infrared helmet

Two months ago Clem Fennell was fading fast.

The victim of an aggressive type of dementia, the 57-year-old businessmen was unable to answer the phone, order a meal or string more than a couple of words together.

In desperation, his family agreed to try a revolutionary new treatment - a bizzare-looking, experimental helmet devised by a British GP that bathes the brain in infra-red light twice a day..

To their astonishment, Mr Fennel began to make an astonishing recovery in just three weeks.

"My husband, Clem, was fading away. It is as if he is back" said his wife Vickey Fennell, 55. "His personality has started to show again. We are absolutely thrilled."

While the helmet has yet to be proven in clinical trials, the family say the effects of the 10 minute sessions are incredible. Mr Fennell can now hold conversations and go shopping unaccompanied.

Two months ago Clem Fennell was fading fast.

The victim of an aggressive type of dementia, the 57-year-old businessmen was unable to answer the phone, order a meal or string more than a couple of words together.

In desperation, his family agreed to try a revolutionary new treatment - a bizzare-looking, experimental helmet devised by a British GP that bathes the brain in infra-red light twice a day..

To their astonishment, Mr Fennel began to make an astonishing recovery in just three weeks.

"My husband, Clem, was fading away. It is as if he is back" said his wife Vickey Fennell, 55. "His personality has started to show again. We are absolutely thrilled."

While the helmet has yet to be proven in clinical trials, the family say the effects of the 10 minute sessions are incredible. Mr Fennell can now hold conversations and go shopping unaccompanied.

The treatment is the brainchild of Dr Gordon Dougal, a County Durham GP. He believes the device could eventually help thousands of dementia patients.

"Potentially, this is hugely significant," said Dr Dougal, who is based in Easington, County Durham and is a director of Virulite, a medical research company.

Developed with Sunderland University, the helmet has 700 LED lights that penetrate the skull. They are thought to be the right wavelength to stimulate the growth of brain cells, slowing down the decline in memory and brain function and reversing symptoms of dementia..

Clem Fennell - the head of a family engineering firm in Cincinnati, Ohio - travelled to the UK after neurologists told him nothing could stop the decline of his dementia. The family's friends had seen a report about the helmet on CBS.

"Honestly I can tell you that within ten days, the deterioration was stopped, then we started to see improvements," said Mrs Fennell, from North Kentucky. "He started to respond to people more quickly when they talked to him."

Three weeks later, the father of two is still making gradual improvements.

His daughter, 22-year-old Maggie said: "When we go to the restaurant we usually have to order his meals for him, now he can order for himself."

"Now we are okay about letting him go to the bank or the post office but he would not have been able to do that three weeks ago.

"Dr Dougal has been a godsend to our family. There was nothing anyone could do to help Clem until now."

It is too soon to say whether Dr Dougal's invention could help other sufferers. The symptoms of Alzheimer's disease and dementia can vary from day to day - and relapses are not unusual. And not all patients may benefit from the treatment.

Dr Dougal stressed that a full, clinically controlled trial would be needed before his anti-dementia helmet could be licensed for public use. A trial of 100 patients is expected to start later this year.

"I made it clear to the Fennells that I didn't know for a fact whether it would work or not, but the results are good," said Dr Dougal.

"He was monosyllabic when I first saw him, but if I ring up now he will answer the phone. He didn't have the verbal skills to do that three weeks ago."

The Fennells have been told they can take the prototype helmet back to the US with them so they can continue the treatment at home.

Commercial versions of the helmet will include 700 LEDs and cost around £10,000.

The Alzheimer’s Society said: "’A treatment that reverses the effects of dementia rather than just temporarily halting its symptoms could change the lives of the hundreds of thousands of people who live with this devastating condition.

‘Non-thermal near infra-red treatment for people with dementia is a potentially interesting technique. We look forward to further research to determine whether it could help improve cognition in humans. Only then can we begin to investigate whether near infra-red could benefit people with dementia.’

One in three people will end their lives with a form of dementia. Around 700,000 suffer from dementia - with more than half having Alzheimer's disease.

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Scientists make 'important advance' in effort to predict quakes.

A team of US researchers has detected stress-induced changes in rocks that occurred hours before two small tremors in California's San Andreas Fault.

The observations used sensors lowered down holes drilled into the quake zone.

The team says we are a long way from routine tremor forecasts but the latest findings hold out hope that such services might be possible one day.

"If you had 10 hours' warning, from a practical point of view, you could evacuate populations, you could certainly get people out of buildings, you could get the fire department ready," said co-author Paul Silver of the Carnegie Institution for Science, Washington.

"Hurricane [warnings] give you an idea of what could be done," he told the BBC's Science In Action programme.

The new work comes out of the San Andreas Fault Observatory at Depth (Safod) project which has been set up in Parkfield, a tiny rural town halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco.

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Surgery Under Hypnosis 'Was Pain Free'

Tea and biscuits are Bernadine Coady's first request straight after an operation on her her knee.

There's no need for her to come round after a general anaesthetic, no nausea as she recovers, because Ms Coady was never put to sleep. She hypnotised herself.

"I didn't feel any pain" said the 67-year-old from Cambridgeshire. "I felt tugging - but that's not pain. I don't have any pain at the moment.

"I was just telling the surgeon, I felt uncomfortable as I had too many pillows! My positioning gave me more problems than the knee!"

There was no trance-like state or deep sleep for Ms Coady - at times during the surgery she even spoke to her surgeon, Ahmed Shair.

It was the third time Mr Shair from the private Orthopaedics and Spine Hospital in Peterborough had operated on her while she was hypnotised.

Ms Coady said her self-hypnosis began as soon as she was told she needed surgery, in this case three weeks ago.

She visualised situations to help her enter a pain-free 'zone'.

"I imagine two blocks of ice on my knee to freeze it and spray the top of my knee and that's all my preparation and I tell myself I won't feel any pain," she said.

"Later on I'm thinking what's happening and visualising the doctor, in my mind's eye I'll be thinking what he's seeing, looking at the tissues, and the tendons.

"I'm telling myself I'm ok, I won't have pain, and that's all there is to it."

Mr Shair assured us Ms Coady's arthroscopy is an extremely painful procedure, involving a number of cuts to the knee.

He admitted he preferred patients to have a general anaesthetic but said he respected her choice.

Ms Coady is now recovering at home. Any post-operative pain is also managed through the power of her mind.

She insisted this was no stunt or illusion - she's a trained hynotherapist who has found her own way to push the boundaries of conventional medicine.

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Watermelon - the natural Viagra

Fresh watermelon has a similar effect to taking Viagra, according to scientists.

But men would have to eat at least six slices to have the same effect as one Viagra tablet - and it's not as 'organ-specific'.

Watermelons contain an ingredient called citrulline that can trigger production of a compound that helps relax the body's blood vessels, similar to what happens when a man takes Viagra.

Found in the flesh and rind of watermelons, citrulline reacts with the body's enzymes when consumed in large quantities and is changed into arginine, an amino acid that benefits the heart and the circulatory and immune systems.

"Arginine boosts nitric oxide, which relaxes blood vessels, the same basic effect that Viagra has, to treat erectile dysfunction and maybe even prevent it," said Bhimu Patil, director of Texas A&M University's Fruit and Vegetable Improvement Centre.

"Watermelon may not be as organ-specific as Viagra, but it's a great way to relax blood vessels without any drug side effects."

Todd Wehner, who studies watermelon breeding at North Carolina State University, said anyone taking Viagra shouldn't expect the same result from watermelon.

"It sounds like it would be an effect that would be interesting but not a substitute for any medical treatment," he said.

The nitric oxide can also help with angina, high blood pressure and other cardiovascular problems, according to the Texas study.

Meteorite could hold clues to birth of the solar system.

A rare meteorite that could reveal the secrets of our solar system's birth has been bought by the Natural History Museum.

The satsuma-sized rock, named Ivuna, has a chemical make-up which matches the sun and is considered to represent the raw materials from which the solar system was formed.

Just 0.03 per cent of meteorites known to science have this composition, and Ivuna is believed to be the best example.

Scientists hope it could help to answer the question of whether the chemical building blocks for life came from the stars.

The meteorite fell in Tanzania in 1938, and one stone weighing 705 grammes was recovered. Until now it has not been available for in-depth research, as most samples taken from that meteorite are held by the Tanzanian government or private collections.

Dr Caroline Smith, meteorite curator at the Natural History Museum, said: "We hold one of the most comprehensive meteorite collections in the world, yet Ivuna has been a missing piece in the jigsaw.

'If we can better understand the complex processes that occurred in our solar system over 4.5 billion years ago, we can apply this to other stellar systems where planets are forming today.'

Ivuna was transferred to the Natural History Museum in central London from a private collection in the US by British Airways.

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Chinese company develops 'UFO'

A Chinese company has developed a prototype flying saucer that can hover in the air and be controlled remotely from afar, state press said Tuesday.

The aircraft is 1.2 metres (four feet) in diameter and is able to take off and land vertically and hover at an altitude of up to 1,000 metres (yards), Xinhua news agency said.

The unmanned disc is driven by a propeller and can be controlled remotely or sent on a preset flight path, it said.

Its top speed is 80 kilometres (50 miles) per hour, it added.

It took the Harbin Smart Special Aerocraft Co Ltd 12 years and 28 million yuan (4.1 million dollars) to develop the prototype craft, which is designed for aerial photography, geological surveys and emergency lighting, the report said.

8 Limb Baby takes her first steps after life-saving surgery

A two-year-old girl worshipped as a goddess after being born with four arms and four legs is taking her first steps since having her extra limbs removed.

Little Lakshmi Tatma had a life-saving operation to remove her headless conjoined twin in November year.

Families in her remote village in India believed she was the reincarnation of the eight limbed Hindu goddess of wealth and fortune Lakshmi.

Her parents were reluctant to agree to the operation for fear it would bring bad luck until doctors told them she would struggle to survive into her teens without it.

Now the brave youngster is learning to walk for the first time eight months after the successful 27-hour procedure.

In an extremely rare case, Lakshmi was joined at the spine to what is medically known a 'parasitic twin'.

She could not use the twin's arms and legs, but the conjoined body fed on hers for oxygen and nutrition.

Each body had one kidney, with the twin's transplanted to Lakshmi during the operation.

Lakshmi, whose progress is being monitored by American television's National Geographic Channel and ABC, now attends a school for disabled children.

She will need more surgery on her spine and on her feet, which were turned inwards.

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Scientists to stop flatulence?

Scientists claim to have developed an inoculation to reduce methane emissions from farting and belching sheep and cows.

Phil Goff, New Zealand's trade minister, told an economic summit in Paris that a solution was in sight.

"Our agricultural research organisation just last week was able to map the genome that causes methane in ruminant animals and we believe we can vaccinate against flatulent emissions," Mr Goff said.

Sheep, cattle, goats and deer produce large quantities of gas through belching and flatulence, as their multiple stomachs digest grass.

Animals are responsible for about a quarter of the methane produced in Britain, but in countries with a large agricultural sector, the proportion is much higher.

The 45 million sheep and 10 million cattle in New Zealand burped and farted about 90% of that country's methane emissions, according to government figures.

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Extinct Plant Reborn From 2,000 Year Old Seed.

It's the sort of palm that wouldn't look out of place in a modern office.But there is nothing ordinary - or modern - about this sapling.

The 5ft-tall plant was grown from a 2,000-year-old seed found at the ancient Israeli fortress of Masada.
It came from a Judean date palm tree that could have been growing in the forests between Galilee and the Dead Sea when Jesus was alive.

The discovery has astonished botanists. Previously, the most ancient seed to germinate was 1,300 years old and had been preserved in cold water.

The seed was discovered inside a jar full of the discarded pits of dates during excavations of Masada in the 1960s.
Dr Sallon - a British doctor who runs the Hadassah Medical Organisation in Jerusalem - soaked the seed in warm water and fertiliser three years ago before she planted it. Within eight weeks it had started to sprout.

Tests on the seed, reported today in the journal Science, confirmed the sapling was around 2,000 years old - the time when the Masada was in use.

Previously, the oldest seed to produce a plant was a 1,300-year-old Chinese lotus grown in America in the 1990s.

Judean date palms - also known as 'trees of life' - once formed thick forests all along the Jordan River.
The forests were destroyed by the Romans and the Judean date palm became extinct more than 1,000 years ago.

Today, Israel imports palms. So if the sapling bears fruit, it will be first time anyone has tasted a real Judean date for more than a millennium.

However, the team will not know whether the tree is a male or female for another two years.
If the Methuselah tree is female, it could be used for cross-breeding to restore the long extinct species. Early DNA tests suggest the 2,000-year-old plant could share around half its genetic code with modern dates.

The fruit was believed to provide a natural remedy for numerous ailments, ranging from heart problems to constipation. It was also used to treat TB, gut problems, chest infections and worms.

In Roman times, Judean dates were a famous delicacy. The historian Pliny described them as large and delicious.