Mars' So-Called Life

The Wired Science blog posted a neat listicle yesterday, "Top 5 Bets for Extraterrestrial Life," and hot on its heels is today's news that observations show evidence of methane and water on Mars. Conclusive? Not really, but as our own species struggles against a greenhouse gas-fueled extinction, it's not such a stretch of the imagination to presume that Earth will remain tethered in lonely orbit long after any indication of our existence is washed away. Maybe, just maybe, Mars did it all first. The real question, though, is whether mankind can recover from its prior follies and set things right before it's too late.