remember the Martian banyan trees?

I sure as hell do. I loved those damned things. It irked me that there seem little interest in the serious scientific community to follow up on what the hell those things were. They were some Martian organism analogous to plant or fungi in my mind. Arthur C. Clarke looked at them and saw the same thing.

Ha! Screw you, "serious" people.

Now it seems that those lovely Martian banyans are probably like those other weird, but explainable, phenomenon on Mars, these spider-web patterns created by what seems gas escaping from the ground.

My heart's kinda broken. I'm 99.999% convinced. I still cannot let go of poring over those photos looking for anomalies though.

mineral deposits of Martian hot springs unearthed: prime location to search for microbial fossils

The broken wheel dragging on the Martian probe Spirit unearthed a patch of mineral deposits that is normally created when hot water contacts volcanic rocks. On earth, areas like this are teaming with microbial life. Although it seems that the rover is not suited for analyzing what has been found, it looks like we may have hit paydirt.

Not only do we get yet more evidence of liquid water on the Martian surface, but it would have been the perfect habitat for life.