Some very exciting hot takes from the press conference:

1. We only see Phosphine signatures on Venus near the equator (not at the poles), which agress with previous atmospheric theories of where microorganisms should be in the atmosphere (Hadley cells)

2. The Phosphine in the upper layers of the atmosphere simply cannot come from any known chemical process at the levels it exists at - the known non-organic processes are hundreds of thousands of times too inefficient

3. Caveat - Venus is a hellhole! 80% of the atmosphere at that level is sulphuric acid. If this is microorganisms, they are hardcore

4. Disclaimer: they've found a gas that we can only currently explain with life, but that DOES NOT mean life has been detected!

For instance: Phosphine is naturally produced non-organically on Jupiter and Saturn, but the conditions to do this aren't present on Venus at ...

... that altitude, so whatever has caused the phosphine is either an as yet unknown chemical process or is life

5. Addendum thanks to @LisaPecher - Phosphine is a dangerous molecule to work with in the lab, so it isn't super well studied. There may still be a chemical process we don't know about.

More research will be needed all round over the next few years!

6. Venus isn't as well studied as e.g. Mars. One of the next steps should be sending new space missions to Venus to study these possible signs of life up close!

7. (paraphrased) "There could be some other chemical process that causes Phosphine on Venus, but the only way to concretely rule out a biological process would be to go to Venus and look for other signs of life"

"The chemistry that produces Phosphine on Jupiter and Saturn [without biology] simply cannot be the cause of Phosphine on Venus"