Horace (and others) here on Vortex noticed the similarity between certain features seen in the microphotographs of mars rocks and lichens here on earth. I checked some lichens on a garden rock in my front yard with a 10x loupe, and was surprised to see how similar the features were to the mars photos - Horace is right. Now experiment proves some lichens do fine for a while when fully exposed to the vacuum and harsh radiation of the actual near-earth space environment:
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/life-05zzzzzzzr.html Other recent conclusions regarding the possible sources of self-replenishing martian methane exclude volcanic origin, which further exposes biology as a remaining possibility. If it is biology, algae is a suspect - lichens are an algae/fungus symbiotic system, and I believe at least some lichens do produce methane. http://www.newscientistspace.com/article.ns?id=dn8256 - R.
