Searching for bacterial life on Mars

I just found out that the NASA Phoenix mission will be landing at Mars at May 25th of our Earth date. The mission is designed to search for traces of life forms native to arctic Martian environment, most likely to be around Bacterial regime or below. How long had it been since the Viking mission? Perhaps this rather conspicuous shift in direction reflects the humanity's growing understanding and concern for the true scientific nature of life. Who knows, a week from now the papers might be blazing with the discovery of traces of bacterial life forms in the deeper crusts of the Martian arctic landscape.