Hatfill, who once worked at the nearby U.S. Army biological lab at Fort Detrick, has been called a "person of interest" in the investigation into anthrax-laced letters that were mailed around the nation last year.

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In addition to the bike paths and sandy beaches, the Cape Cod village offers a host of internationally acclaimed facilities, among them the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, the Woods Hole Science Aquarium, the National Academy of Sciences conference center and the Marine Biological Lab.

FORBES: Woods Hole Winner

While it is likely that getting such a computer to function inside a living cell remains some way off, the remarkably rapid progress of biological computers in controlled lab conditions means that that distant day looks to be getting closer.

ECONOMIST: A biological computer diagnoses and treats cancer

As an undergraduate, Mr. Holmes's course work and after-hours work in the chemistry lab would have focused on biological chemistry and pharmaceuticals, not on chemicals that might be used to make gases or explosives, former UC Riverside neuroscience students said.

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