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Why do nearly 1 million people taking cholesterol-lowering statins often experience muscle cramps? Why is it that in the rare case when a diabetic takes medication for intestinal worms, his glucose levels improve? Is there any scientific basis for the purported health effects of green tea?

A new chemical toolkit provides the first clinical explanation for these and other physiological mysteries. The answers, it turns out, all boil down to mitochondria, those tiny organelles floating around in cellular cytoplasm, often described as the cell’s battery packs.

While the economy may (or may not) be in a nosedive, the methods available to decode DNA are, without a doubt, in the midst of a major growth spurt. It is arguably one of the most significant metamorphoses to occur in the 20-year history of modern genetic technology.

The frenzy originates from new technologies that read — or “sequence” — DNA faster, better and cheaper than the once predominant technique, the Sanger method. That tried and true way of reading genes reached its heyday with the sequencing of the human genome and that of many other organisms, large and small.