THE SCIENTIST WHOSE EXPERIMENT ON MARS 25 YEARS AGO MAY HAVE BEEN FIRST TO DETECT LIFE ON MARS APPEARS TONIGHT ON THE HISTORY CHANNEL

Contact: Mark Hopkinson 561/750-9800 ext 15
Email: mhopkinson@TransMediagroup.com

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
BELTSVILLE, MD, August 18, 2000.-One of the early pioneers in the scientific search for life on Mars, Dr. Gilbert V. Levin, appears at 9 PM ET/PT on The History Channel's hour-long weekly series THIS WEEK IN HISTORY.

Dr. Levin, who today is President of Biospherics Inc., (NASDAQ/BINC), a biotech company based here, talks on tonight's program about his Viking Labeled Release (LR) life detection instrument that landed on Mars in 1976. His experiment produced the first evidence of the existence of life on Mars, a finding that became immediately engulfed in controversy that has continued to this day.

Recently new interest in Dr. Levin's experiment was stirred by NASA's decision to land new rovers on Mars, amid renewed, heated debate among scientists over the existence of life on the red planet.

Earlier this month, Dr. Levin, one of a trio of scientists who participated in NASA's Viking Mission 25 years ago, presented a paper at the Annual Meeting of the International Society for Optical Engineering in San Diego, which refuted the mainstay arguments against life on Mars. Since a variety of new findings have made the presence of organic matter and liquid water on Mars seem more plausible, his original LR experiment now appears much more credible.

The consensus of interested scientists has been that the Viking LR results on Mars, though positive, were chemical in origin and not biological. In a l997 publication, however, following two decades of study, Levin finally concluded that Viking had indeed detected living microorganisms on Mars. Acknowledging that many scientists may remain unconvinced, he proposes a new test to settle the issue once and for all and urges that it be sent on the next lander mission to Mars.

In THIS WEEK IN HISTORY, The History Channel takes an entertaining, week-by-week look at history, from its most monumental events to the whimsical moments that tell us as much about who we were and where we were headed. Giselle Fernandez and Josh Binswanger host tonight's program. For more information visit HistoryChannel.com.