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Brief Points, December 2006

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▪ A bacterium living inside an insect has the tiniest genome known, consisting of just 160,000 base pairs that make up at most 182 genes. It may reflect an organelle in the making.

Science, October 13

▪ The carnivorous dinosaur Coelophysis bauri was long thought to be a cannibal based on fossils showing its own species' bones in its stomach. But a reanalysis suggests that the bones probably represent an intermingling after death.


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Biology Letters online, September 19

▪ Indonesian wonders: The so-called Bird's Head Seascape off the western coast of New Guinea revealed after a recent survey that it contained as many as 52 new species of fish, shrimp and coral.

Conservation International announcement, September 18

▪ Time to make the doughnuts: An expulsion of protein from the cell nucleus seems to be at the root of familial advanced sleep phase syndrome, a rare condition in which people hit the hay and wake up about four hours before everyone else.

Genes and Development online, September 18

Scientific American Magazine Vol 295 Issue 6This article was published with the title “Brief Points” in Scientific American Magazine Vol. 295 No. 6 (), p. 38
doi:10.1038/scientificamerican1206-38Ba

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