Bacteria are well-known to be the cause of some of the most repugnant smells on earth, but now scientists have revealed this lowest of life forms actually has a sense of smell of its own.

Using a new, rapid and less expensive DNA sequencing strategy, scientists have discovered genetic alterations that account for most cases of Kabuki syndrome, a rare disorder that causes multiple birth defects and mental retardation. Instead of sequencing the entire human genome, the new approach sequences just the exome, the 1-2 percent of the human genome that contains protein-coding genes.