They've found life! (Score 4, Informative)

Back in 1976, the LRE experiments on Viking were consistent with evidence for microbial life on Mars. These were dismissed as false positives by some in the community, despite the protests of Gilbert Levin, one of the original researchers on the project. Fortunately, he saved printouts of all the data, and these were later used in 2001 by Miller, a biologist at USC. The new study showed evidence of a periodic gas release according to circadian rhythms consistent with microbial life. In retrospect, Miller said there was a 75% chance of life, given the data in 1975. After his study in 2001, he said there was a 90% chance of life.

The summary of the study can be found at USC here.