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There was a very simple test on the Viking Lander that showed evidence of life.
https://phys.org/news/2016-10-year-old-viking-life-mars.html
One of these balls popped up overnight at the foot of the first Mars rover years back. It disappeared just as quickly. Many people speculated that it was a fungus of some sort, but NASA explained it as something not biological.
I wouldn't be surprised if Mars DOES have bacterial life, but the idea that fungus spores are springing up every where is kind of hard to swallow - unless the entire surface of mars is covered in a bacterial sheet - and maybe it is - but if it is, it's been a complete screw-up to take 40 years to detect this.
recent work acknowledges eukaryotes, and in particular fungi, as common inhabitants of the deep biosphere, including the deep igneous provinces. The fossil record of the subseafloor igneous crust, and to some extent the continental bedrock, establishes fungi or fungus-like organisms as inhabitants of deep rock since at least the Paleoproterozoic
"Advanced" apes can't detect most of bacteria here on Earth, so should be even more difficult on Mars. I often talk to researchers who isolate new bacterial strains, and they tell me that if it can't be cultivated, they can't discover it.
Humans have described between 10000 and 20000 species of bacteria, while the estimated total number of bacteria species is 10^19...
I can believe it. Mars is not so completely inhospitable to primitive life.
https://www.popularmechanics.com/space/moon-mars/amp36356445/mushrooms-on-mars-nasa-photos-life-on-mars/