[gojomo]

The Wikipedia language suggests the existence of perchlorates (discovered in other Martian soil in 2008) could have destroyed organics during the 1976 test heating, thus explaining some of the negative results from Viking – leaving the positive 'Labeled Release' result more credible. That's the interpretation of the paper described at:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/09/100904081050.ht...

That article is currently footnote #28 of the Wikipedia article, describing the 2010 paper referenced as footnote #25. Another footnoted reference from 2011 (#29) disagrees. But presumably, all that perchlorate-related reasoning was available to the authors of the 2012 paper defending the positive result.

[raverbashing]

This is an interesting interpretation

The chlorometane results were a true result after all.

However, I have the impression that, organics, in contact with perchlorates (or any strong oxidant) will result in CO2

Also, it was repeated one week later, with no results

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viking_lander_biological_experi...

[marcosdumay]

> However, I have the impression that, organics, in contact with perchlorates (or any strong oxidant) will result in CO2

With enough perchlorate, it will. But with smaller amounts of it, there's a huge number of possibilities, including products that are more complex than the reactants.