From http://www.gillevin.com/ , the fourth co-author's site:

"Based on his sensitive radioisotope microbial detection method, Dr. Levin proposed to NASA and was selected for the Viking Mission to Mars. He was designated Experimenter of the Viking Labeled Release life detection experiment which landed on Mars in 1976. The experiment got positive responses at both Viking landing sites. However, a consensus did not accept his results as proof of life. After years of study, in 1997 Dr. Levin concluded that the experiment had, indeed, detected life on the red planet, and published his conclusion. Subsequent findings of environmental conditions on Mars and research on organisms found in extreme environments on Earth have been consistent with his claim. Pursuing the life issue, Dr. Levin was a member of the Scientific Instrument Team for NASA’s experiment on the ill-fated Russian ’96 Mars Mission. He has since developed, proposed and published on a Chiral LR life detection experiment as a way to remove any doubt about the original Mars LR results."

Somewhat removed from any idea of disinterested scholarship.

This looks less like evidence that the Viking robots found life than evidence that somebody figured out how to get their research topic in the news.

Using techniques this many steps removed from the raw data are irrelevant no matter how clever they are, because there's just too many things that can go wrong with no way to validate what the problem is, without going back and collecting more data. We're not going to come to a consensus about something as big as life on Mars on a result this meta.

More accurate headline: "USC research team claims level of order found in Viking data set is indicative of biological processes, rather than prevailing consensus view which holds it was geological in nature."

The inundation with links to other articles (inline and sliding in) makes this site basically unreadable. It's impossible to concentrate! Really just shameful for a purported science site...

* Maybe.