Must-see videos of the week – August 10

From an incredible landing on Mars to a first-person view of a plane crash, there have been some great videos this past week and here are some of the best.

1. Mars rover makes incredible landing

The NASA team is receiving what one scientist is describing as a gold medal for sticking the landing. The $2.5-billion Mars rover Curiosity landed in a crater sending scientists jumping in to the air in celebration. It ended an eight-month, 567-million kilometre journey and required a supersonic parachute to slow the mobile lab down as it plummeted toward the ground. The vehicle comes equipped with 17 cameras and has been sending back images including high-resolution and 360-degree ones since shortly after it landed. Curiosity will not drive or move its robotic arm for weeks and is on the Red Planet to look for evidence that life could exist there.

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2. Plane crash filmed from cockpit

Leslie Gropp was flying her single-engine plane with his son and two friends over the Idaho wilderness after a morning hike when the plane crashed. The plane struggled to gain altitude and after about three or four minutes was only about 20 metres above the trees. It then started to lose altitude.

"It happened so fast that I remember hitting the trees and it sounded like rapid fire," Gropp said to Boise's KBOI-TV. "Gunfire, it sounded like, but then we were all upside down, seat-belted in, and you can hear in the video my dad asking if everyone is all right."

All of the action was captured by a cockpit-mounted GoPro camera. Gropp suffered a broken jaw and cheekbone in the crash and is expected to make a full recovery. The other three passengers were treated for minor injuries after all four walked away from the crash.

3. Bomb found in Newfoundland park

City staff in St. John's found a homemade explosive device which was wrapped in black tape and had a fuse sticking out of it. The bomb squad was called in. Luckily no one was hurt and the bomb did not detonate.

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4. Does chemotherapy do more harm than good?

An article published in Nature Medicine shows chemotherapy can undermine itself by causing a rogue response in healthy cells and may be causing people to become resistant to the treatment. The study suggests the treatment can sometimes damage healthy cells.

5. Illegal alligator removed from backyard tub

After receiving a tip, authorities went looking for an alligator that was being kept as a pet in a Cleveland backyard. They found the one-metre gator in a tub with a metal grate and bricks around it to keep it from escaping. The alligator's owner is apparently already in jail and will now face more charges for keeping the illegal exotic animal. This particular alligator is a juvenile and can grow to more than double its current size. Neighbours say they all knew about the gator and while it was scary people would feed it and pet it.