Hi All

Robert wrote...

I also suggest the experiments in the Atacama that sought to replicate the Labeled Release experiment results without biology may also have been detecting this species of microbe.

...well that'd be boring. I would hope for something exotic not expatriate Earth bugs. I think you meant a Mars bug analogous to the terrestrial O2 making microbes. Surely the biochemistry could be replicated without them being the same species. For example evey living thing on Earth uses cytochrome-c, but some bacterial cytochrome-c is utterly different genetically to all others. Analogous biomolecule, but different origins.

If there is Mars life - and the water finds and methane traces are making a good case - I would hope that it is different. Or at least its divergence from terrestrials dates to the late bombardment era or even before. Maybe using different amino acids, different codons. That'd be interesting. But if it is some expat bug toughing it after a recent meteorite ride, well I'm reaching for the bacteriocide...

Adam