Life on Mars?

Here’s a provocative exclusive from Space.com:

Exclusive: NASA Researchers Claim Evidence of Present Life on Mars.

A pair of NASA scientists told a group of space officials at a private meeting here Sunday that they have found strong evidence that life may exist today on Mars, hidden away in caves and sustained by pockets of water.

The scientists, Carol Stoker and Larry Lemke of NASA’s Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley, told the group that they have submitted their findings to the journal Nature for publication in May, and their paper currently is being peer reviewed.

What Stoker and Lemke have found, according to several attendees of the private meeting, is not direct proof of life on Mars, but methane signatures and other signs of possible biological activity remarkably similar to those recently discovered in caves here on Earth.

If confirmed, this could have some serious ramifications for evolution on the early Earth. Did living things go from Mars to Earth or vice versa? Are we talking about multiple origin of life events? Interesting stuff. I guess we’ll have to live with a mere teaser for now.