Sprouts so far innocent of E. coli outbreak; bacterium strikes brain oddly

The source of a deadly outbreak of Escherichia coli bacteria in Germany remains elusive as German officials today announced that the first tests of samples from a sprouts farm implicated in the outbreak were negative.The German farm had been shut down yesterday by authorities and the region’s health minister had advised people not to eat the vegetables. The confusing turn of events comes less than a week after German officials suggested Spanish cucumbers were the source, only to later backtrack. Researchers are now analyzing the genome of the bacterium to understand its evolutionary history and possibly identify its source. Closer analysis of the genome might also...