From small things come great hope. Glass-eating microbes discovered 300 meters below the Earths ocean floors have given scientists further evidence that life on Mars and Europa is a possibility.The newly found microbes are literally at the rock bottom of the food chain. And they survive on a bare minimum: water, heat, and nutrients they digest from volcanic glass in the ocean floor. These lithoautotrophs, as they are called, are so bare bones they could easily exist on other less hospitable worlds.
http://www.space.com/searchforlife/mars_glass_011005.html
