Hi Mark

I think we've all stated our various points of view and we're waiting for data. The Titan example is a case in point - some researchers have made plausible biophysical models for how microbes might get by on Titan, but until something crops up in the Huygens data there's nothing more we can really say.

Mars is the best target still - Europa's available energy is too low for a decent biosphere - and the MARSIS data is yet to reveal anything substantive so I think we're all on hold.

Interesting aside is the current status of nanobacteria which gave credence to the ALH84001 findings - the company, Nanobac, that the initial discoverers of "nanobacteria" founded is currently going with the inanimate model for the calcifications supposedly diagnostic of nanobacteria. Another group of researchers have pinned down the causative agents as being protein tangles that nucleate calcium deposition, which Nanobac are now peddling as the target of their therapies. I am unsure whether there's anything to their therapeutic claims, tho amusingly one of their most strident critics advocates a cardiac therapy that's got him mentioned on the excellent website Quackwatch.

So what are the weird organic structures that Philippa Unwins found a few years ago? Are they alive? And when will we see more research?

Adam