This is interesting

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3648283.stm

Why would there not have been a similar mechanism on Mars?

Let's look out for the martian rock crunching organisms (if we ever get any new images.)

Volcano-loving life is good news... That would make life easier to appear and exist. (Volcanoes -> heat, energy and liquid water readily available; shields from ultraviolet radiation.)

On Mars, for me it is hard to think anything different place to live.

Some geothermal activity may be present on Mars even today. 8)

Not with Spirit or Opportunity, they lack the instrumentation needed.

Mmmm.... Mars Science Laboratory... *drool* :P

This type of organism is very small. Think of a small thing. Well it's smaller than that!
I think we would need an electron microscope to see these.

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The 'burrows' in the lava are believed to have been made after the lava cooled and hardened. This is not evidence for volcano-loving life. In fact, similar tubes are made by bacteria today in hardened lava.

This is made clearer in the Space.com article of the same story.

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"Ignorance has caused more calamity than malignity" H.G. Wells

"Getting lost is part of exploring." Uniqua in "Backyardigans-Heart of the Jungle"

The point is there's loads of cold and hard lava on Mars and there are organism which can develop early in a planets history when the circumstances would have been very hostile to the Earth surface life we recognise.

Mars is also likely to have had a similar history to Earth to 3.5 billion year ago - they say that this may be evidence that life was thriving not long after this world had been presumably sterilized.

In my view that means past microbial life on Mars was also probable.

Shame the Space.com article had to denigrate them as being boring organisms.

Of course, I didn't mean anything could live in molten or very hot rock. I meant that area around magma, where temperatures are bearable, could be good place for life. Much better than surfaces of either ancient Earth or now-day Mars.

We know so little about the origin and earliest days of life on Earth, even less on another worlds... We can still only speculate. I wouldn't be too optimistic, though.

Rock-eating creatures boring... oh well.

There has been speculation on the amount of life under ground. If there is microbes here and there up to several kilometers deep, their biomass could easily exceed all the biomass above the ground! Microbes get their food and energy from the rock they digest. Necessary water is also present deep in the rock.

I saw the joke potential here and decided to leave it alone... :P

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"Ignorance has caused more calamity than malignity" H.G. Wells

"Getting lost is part of exploring." Uniqua in "Backyardigans-Heart of the Jungle"