[meteorite-list] New evidence for microbial fossils in Martian meteorite

[Darren Garrison]

On Sat, 8 May 2010 22:49:27 -0700 (PDT), you wrote:

>I watched this program on TV about the presence of life in extreme environments - living things have been found thriving in places and in substances never before considered possible, such as in crude oil in Panama with little to no water or oxygen and in the glaciers on the summit of Mt.Kenya where radiation from the suns rays can be intense.. 

Yes, the bottleneck for life may very well be in having the conditions for
abiogenesis in the first place.  Once life has started, it is damn hard to get
rid of-- bacterial life, at least.  Given gradual (as in, not instantaneous,
globally catastropic) changes "for the worse", microbes tend to be able to adapt
to a very wide range of conditions.  That's why I think that, if there ever was
life on Mars at all, there probably continues to be life on Mars today (even if
only a couple of klicks under the surface.)