Although many of the genes encoding El Tor's pathogenic machinery were already known, the new sequence does reveal a number of unexpected metabolic pathways that may prove useful for drug development, according to Dr Mekalanos.

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Google searches uncovered that a mathematical concept called the Fibonacci number sequence underlies the structure of tree branches.

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The result is variation in the number of copies of that sequence, a variability we call CNV.

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But after the opening sequence, which is edited to the hip-hop rhythm of a number by the female rappers Nikki D and Cee Asia, the movie starts to go wrong.

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Though the firm has proved the principle, a single pore would take about 70 days to sequence an entire human genome (which has roughly the same number of letters as 1, 000 Russian novels).

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