We got martians!

[Primus]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=96&e=1&u=/space/20050216/sc_space/exclusivenasaresearchersclaimevidenceofpresentlife onmars

"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."

Well, maybe not martians... Not even a "direct proof of life on Mars".

It seems that they find life on Mars from time to time, and then it's nothing... And if they finally do for real.. I don't think that it would rock my world in anyway. ..Unless it's a frikkin' alien fossile or something :p

[MatthewPapa]

Yea, a fossil would suck but some real life would be cool. Just remember though that the this "life" theyre talking about is most likely single celled (or whatever it uses), primitive organisms

[Primus]

I remember. And I'm not amazed. This isn't the first time they find, or think they found primitive martians.

[Star Dragon]

if we find fossils can we clone them?

[Taristin]

depends, is their 'DNA' anything like ours? (meaning is that what they use? Or are they completely alien?)

[Black Wolf]

if we find fossils can we clone them?

Well, technically this is gooing to depend on your definition of "fossil", but in the traditional sense, no, you couldn't.

As for their DNA, there's a very good chance that they will have DNA of a very similar structure to our own, for two reasons.

First, if they exist, it's possible they came from earth naturally, carried of impact ejecta. This is still theoretical, of course, but the possibility that Earth has seeded other inner planets or outer moons isn't as ludicrous as it was considered when first proposed.

The second, and more important, reason has to do with the nature of DNA. The DNA molecule sits on a razors edge between being entirely random and overly simplified, but since it has to carry so much information, it has to sit at that edge in order to do what it does. Any other self replicating molecule would be sitting at the same edge and need at least a similar basic structure to our DNA.