From 30 precious milligrams drilled out of the sample they extracted mitochondrial DNA. The mitochondria, a cell's power packs, are the much-modified descendants of bacteria that took up residence in the ancestors of modern animal and plant cells a billion years ago.

ECONOMIST: A new species of human

This comes after weeks of spotty polling, in which wide-scale power outages and destruction made it difficult to find a truly random opinion sample.

CNN: Hurricanes complicate election projections