At the testing laboratories, US researchers extracted almost 40 billion elements of raw DNA, reflecting high microbial diversity in the soil.The scientists were also able to piece together the genetic code, or genome, of a previously unknown methane-producing “methanogen” that was present in large numbers. Reporting their findings in an early online edition of the journal Nature, the researchers led by Dr Janet Jansson, from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California, wrote: “This is the first example of a successful assembly of a draft genome of a novel methanogen.
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