lake on mars: Claims that life exists on Mars were boosted when scientists recently declared they saw the remains of a frozen sea on the planet's surface and speculated the ice may hold preserved organisms.

Planetary geologists led by John Murray of Britain's Open University said the evidence comes from pictures sent by the European Space Agency's Mars Express orbiter. High resolution, stereoscopic images reveal a flat, "plate-like terrain' in the region of southern Elysium Planitia, near the Martian equator, that appears remarkably like fields of pack ice on Earth, they say.

air pollution: Fine particles present in polluted air damage not only the lungs but can also affect the inner lining of arteries, according to a team of researchers from the Univeristy of Southern California, USA's Keck School of Medicine, headed by Nino Kunzli. Their paper provides the first epidemiologic evidence linking arteriosclerosis