Tiny Microbes and the Tree of Life, Big Aliens

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Small critters: The University of California, Berkeley, press release calls them "bacteria," but scientists may decide that they should get another label. These tiny microorganisms aren't quite like anything else that's had its DNA analyzed before, so textbooks may need to be rewritten in a few years.

Big aliens: Ever since reporters garbled a 1950s UFO sighting, "little green men" has meant "space alien." We still don't know whether there's life, intelligent or otherwise, elsewhere: but a scientist says that if we've got neighbors, they're probably bigger than we are.

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