Fungi on Mars? Evidence of Growth and Behavior from Sequential Images [pdf]
Lots of image pairs showing "growth" (7&8 esp which is the image pair they did their hypothesis testing on) can be perfectly explained by the sand just blowing off and revealing more of the round pebbles. The "smaller" ones are nearly all covered more in "before" than "after" and the "appearance" might just be "reveal of". See 41, 42, 44 for the close-up of changes. I don't buy that whole section.<p>Fig 29-30 is interesting ...
Fig 31-32 can be explained by the treads collecting blue sand.<p>All the images of dark streaks and clumps are in line with these:<p><a href="https://www.universetoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/PIA19127_ip.jpg" rel="nofollow">https://www.universetoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/PIA...</a><p>which show that there's a bunch of dark stuff under the surface that shows when you disturb the surface. Interpreting fresh impact imagery with a fungii story would be "Rocks impacting the surface cause fungii growth" which makes very little sense. Even dust devils strip off the surface enough to show the dark stuff.<p><a href="https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Images/2021/02/Mars_dust_devils_in_action" rel="nofollow">https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Images/2021/02/Mars_dust_...</a><p>I'm doubtful but hey what do I know, I just make robots. I hope it's all fungi and I hope it's edible.