[X] My Assistant

[abalone]

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/02/16/2164485.htm
http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/200.../15/668749.aspx

[marsbug]

I'm hoping to read the paper before I form any strong opinions. I'm a bit surprised by all the fuss this has caused though, from what I've read it fits very well with the picture of martian history we were already building up. Three things i'd like to say are; 1) Hoping for extant life on mars has always been an against the odds kind of thing, thats what has made it attractive to me.
2) The fact that the climate went bad doesn't affect the evidence that it was once more benign, even if only for a fairly short period waaay back at the begining.
3)If mars was truly never habitable, even for microbes, it's a disapointment but not as great as some will say. Europa and ganymede both hold strong promise of oceans, the nature of the plumes of enceladus has still not been settled to my mind. In addition, we know that there is a lot to learn about the prebiotic chemistry that led to life from titan, and learning more about life here is the whole point of looking for life out there.
Does any one know how to get hold of the paper ?