From: henry@spsystems.net   
      
   In article ,   
   Ron Baalke  wrote:   
   >...said McKay, who noted that the team did discover a   
   >non-biological oxidative substance that appears to have reacted with   
   >the organics -- results that mimicked Viking's results.   
      
   I finally got around to reading that issue of Science, and found this   
   paper most interesting.  The press release plays up the sterility of the   
   soil, which is indeed remarkable, and the high temperatures needed to   
   release what slight traces of organics are present, but it has only that   
   one passing allusion to what is (to my mind) the most important finding:   
   there is some kind of non-biological oxidant in the soil!   
      
   The exact nature of the oxidant is undetermined -- interestingly enough,   
   chemical tests for the obvious candidates (and the ones that have been   
   proposed for the Martian surface) all came up negative -- but there is   
   something in there that's roughly duplicating what Gil Leven's Labeled   
   Release experiment did on Mars.  And it would appear to be non-biological,   
   because it doesn't care whether the glucose it chews up is right-handed   
   (normal for Earth life) or left-handed, whereas bacteria eat only the   
   right-handed glucose.   
   --   
   MOST launched 30 June; first light, 29 July; 5arcsec    | Henry Spencer   
   pointing, 10 Sept; first science, early Oct; all well.  | henry@spsystems.net   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)