In scientific terms, probably the most significant effect of the Sea Empress spill has been felt by a tiny creature known as the brooding cushion-star, or Asterina phylactica to those in the know.

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Beautiful and brown, the tiny creature lands next in a sleazy pawnshop, then in the cramped Prague apartment of a childless couple, dreamy Mila (Natasa Burger), who has wanted a baby desperately, and her rent-a-cop mate, Franta (Jiri Machacek), who can't adopt because of his criminal past as a soccer hooligan.

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Michele (Giuseppe Cristiano), a frisky ten-year-old, is spending a carefree summer in the golden wheat fields of southern Italy when he finds something unaccountable a tiny, pale creature kept captive in a pit near an abandoned farmhouse.

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Grass sprouts from the rooftops of tall apartment buildings and lambs can be found grazing on these aerial pastures, the occasional ill-starred creature crossing the border of its tiny world and plummeting into traffic, only to be stolen away almost immediately by a hungry citizen.

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They say the lengths of tiny pieces of DNA called telomeres indicate whether a young creature is likely to live long into old age.

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