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Iceland Discovery Promotes Martian Life Hypotheses
nusratt writes "This nature.com article reports research presented at the Bioastronomy 2004 conference in Reykjavik, Iceland. 'Scientists have discovered a community of bacteria living in the lake beneath an Icelandic glacier. The chilly world provides a model of Martian terrain and may boost speculation about the red planet's potential inhabitants. This is the first unequivocal example of life in a subglacial lake. The bacteria were definitely not introduced from above'."
That may be true, but consider that your definition of 'friendly' is very subjective. We don't really know under what conditions life here started, but they would probably be rather extreme by our standards. And that's just our specific form of life - we label conditions as extreme because the processes we see in local life aren't portable - but it may not be the case for other lifeforms. I personally think the chances for life on Mars are slim, but we really have no idea what conditions are needed for life to form.