IDENTICAL twins Hugo and Ross Turner, from Christow, are set to climb continental Europe's highest mountain in a daring experiment that will require one of them to wear replica kit from the early 20th century.

They will tackle Russia's deadly 18,510ft Mt Elbrus later this month, a two-week challenge that will include temperatures as low as minus 30C, altitude sickness, exhaustion and crevasse fields.

Scientists at King's College London's Department of Twin Research and GlaxoSmithKline's Human Performance Laboratory want to monitor how the brothers react given their different equipment.

Kings College's Dr Kirsten Ward said: 'Twins help us to look at the role of genes and environment in a range of common complex disease and their associated traits of interest.

'As Hugo and Ross are identical, and therefore share 100 per cent of their genes, any differences that we see between them will be due to the environment that they have been exposed to during their expedition.

'We are very excited to be able to take part in this unique opportunity to see how the different equipment impacts on them both during their expedition.'