Evidence that Mars once fostered life, at least in microbial form, is supported by two papers published in the journal Science today. The findings are likely to spark intense debate in Houston, Texas, next week, when an international gathering of geochemists and biologists have set aside two days of a week-long conference programme solely to debate results from examination of samples from the meteorite ALH84001.

The tiny probe which boldly went where no man-made object had gone before is to be shut down in space.

Never again will a single story be told as if it were the only one." This line, from G by John Berger, was used by Michael Ondaatje as the epigraph for In the Skin of a Lion. It is also there like a watermark, touching every page of Anne Michaels's novel.

If you're already crash-dieting in preparation for the festive blow-out, then the latest big idea from America may help you get your body mass back in perspective. Jerome Burne reports on why fat is beautiful, healthy and has history on its side

The disastrous failure of the Ariane 5 and Russian Proton rockets dashed the hopes of many scientists. But they may be rescued by a daring plan, codenamed `Phoenix'. By Charles Arthur

A fantastic voyage through the body is no longer a Hollywood dream. Roger Dobson examines the new technology which enables surgeons to practise skills without ever picking up a scalpel

Television

The house of the future is so full of gadgets, you need never leave the sofa, says Andrew North

A flying formation of four identical satellites will be launched by the European Space Agency later this month to watch the weather in space and study the effect on the Earth of storms on the surface of the Sun.

In 1956, a couple of years after his doctorate, Walter Marshall, as a young Scientific Officer at Harwell, attended a Summer School on Magnetism at Varenna on Lake Como, in the company of some of the greatest authorities on that subject, writes Professor Nicholas Kurti [further to the obituary by John Baker, 26 February]. The deep impression made by this brilliant young physicist is proved by the fact that Professor J.H. van Vleck of Harvard and Professor C. Kittel of the University of California, Berkeley invited him to spend a year in each of their respective departments. After his return to AERE it was largely thanks to his dynamic leadership and personal contributions that Harwell became one of the leading centres for solid state physics.

From Dr T J Dennis

DANNY PENMAN

Scientists say they have obtained evidence of how high-voltage power cables might cause certain types of cancer, threatening to fuel the controversy surrounding the issue.

BRITAIN'S five million mobile telephone users may soon literally be talking through their hats, if Harvard University scientists have their way.