BBC Focus Magazine

[M Paul Lloyd]

I am going to be honest, I am treating this with a really big dose of scepticism, especially as you can 'prove' almost anything with mathematics, and any association with 'Discovery' can be a tad fringe/dodgy in my experience, but you never know.

Mathematical analysis adds to growing body of work questioning the negative results of a life-detection experiment 36 years ago.
By Irene Klotz
Thu Apr 12, 2012 12:23 PM ET
New analysis of 36-year-old data, resuscitated from printouts, shows NASA found life on Mars, an international team of mathematicians and scientists conclude in a paper published this week.
Further, NASA doesn't need a human expedition to Mars to nail down the claim, neuropharmacologist and biologist Joseph Miller, with the University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine, told Discovery News.

More here.
http://news.discovery.com/space/mars-li ... gn=rssnws1

[MikeG]

Maybe new missions should target these same areas again, to lay this matter to rest.

[M Paul Lloyd]

I am inclined to agree MikeG and they had quite simple methods of doing so already available when the two rovers, Spirit and Oppertunity, went to Mars but it was not seen as a sufficently important experiment, given that the rovers were designed to act as geologists rather than biologists.

Thing is, given the levels of electromagnetic radiation (significantly ultraviolet) experienced on the Martian surface, it seems unlikely that life of any kind would survive in easily accesible areas and if life is present it is more likely to be underground where conditions could be more favourable?