Many news media report that Mars was too dry for life and was wet for no more than 5,000 years in 4.5 billion years (Ref. 1). That is a big error. The fact is that Mars was wet for at least one billion years and inhabited by humans.

Dr. Tom Pike and his team looked for clays in the “soil” samples of Martian surface. They never thought the samples they saw in AFM are in fact cellular fossils, which usually do not contain clays. No wonder they found no clay and came to wrong conclusion. To substantiate my claim, here is an AFM image of the Martian “soil” particle examined by the team of Dr. Tom Pike: [link to www.wretch.cc]
Source of image: [link to www.nbi.ku.dk]
Earthly skeletal muscle fiber for comparison:
[link to www.sport-fitness-advisor.com]
[link to drclydewilson.typepad.com]
Ref. 1: [link to news.google.com.tw]