NASA press conference on Mars discovery today

[barkis]

Well with all the Chemical analysing being performed, I thought it might need to
purge itself now and again to get rid of unwanted residuals.
My attempt at a puerile jest, may turn out to have some mileage in it.
Or, maybe not .

[John]

I can recall when the Viking lander soil analysis caused a great stir for a while back in the late 1970's. They really thought that they had detected organic compounds but then the doubts set in. I believe they now think that it is possible that the Viking test results might have been caused by the presence (unknown until recently) of a non-organic substance which reacts in a similar way to organic materials when subjected to the same tests.

Meanwhile, this made me smile