<This is coming from the scientists who did the research, not the media. The sentence you quoted is perfectly fine. It's a headline like "New microbes suggest life on Mars" that is misleading.

So, because some "scientist" took a class in "marketing" I shouldn't complain about the "hype" he should send to the media, which the media will happily accept, since it bolsters their own hype-outlook.

The piece was written by Richard Stenger, a CNN Sci-Tech, btw. That means the whole thing is up to HIS interpretation of what the scientists wrote.

The key question of life on Mars is the question of liquid water, which has led to NASA's follow the water strategy. If it is true that you have microbes surviving at below zero temperatures in Antarctica on water kept liquid by high salt content, then that raises the possibility it could happen on Mars. That is what the sentence you quoted says and that is the point of the article.

I’m very sorry that the education system has fallen to such a point that the discovery of life on Earth was such a surprise to the science team that dug into the Antarctic desert, but there’s really not a whole lot I can do about that.

Life at sub-zero? That’s completely unheard of!!

Seeing as FISH, not MICROBES, have been found to live entire life-cycles in the dark, sub-zero waters of the Arctic Ocean -- decades ago -- there should be no “surprise”. Also, microbes have already been found to live inside the surface of rocks found in the Antarctic.

Microbes at the South Pole?

But -- how?

Well, how about weather? For the past few billion years, the Earth has had a thing called weather, which blows all sorts of things from every part of the globe to another -- life included.

Of course there’s life at the South Pole. The life-forms we currently know have shown themselves to be very resilient -- both here and on our Moon -- and have displayed an ability to “evolve” to environments.

The same should hold true for ET life -- once that life has gained enough of a foothold to even exist. So far, that one little point remains completely unproven for Mars. Ergo, the possibility for life to exist on Mars remains unchanged. It’s still a firm MAYBE.

You seem to have the idea that anyone *else* reading the article would get the idea it means "new microbes prove life exists on Mars!" You don't read it that way. There's no reason to presume others read it that way.

Others?

I am a human on this planet, and that's the way I read it. It’s evident there are people who enjoy their blinders and refuse to move them. The line in question is a subliminal, one clearly meant to “imply” a view, but not to “state” a view, and my recognizing this fact makes my response valid for your mythical "others" who may be confused by it.

Thank you for pointing out the fact that scientists can be just as ignorant as reporters, btw. It adds fuel to my argument. However, even if the scientists wrote a valid paper with absolutely no hype in it whatsoever, it was later “interpreted” by a CNN staffer and published, making it “media hype”.

Hype is hype, Bob, regardless of the source,
Dan