"If I had to guess, it's a combination of a new, complex development and a small sample size, ma'am," Kaidan answers. "I'm one of the oldest of the human biotics -- uh, people with internal element zero nodes-- and there aren't many in my cohort. There are, uh, even less that are inclined to volunteer as study subjects." Kaidan doesn't go into specific detail, but anyone who's a human geneticist has to be aware of the checkered history of the field.

"But," he continues "I can give you the run down on element zero and the mass effect later, if you're curious. My concern's that when we get the anomaly that brought me here sorted out, I'm going to be returning to entire planets worth of people exposed to dust form element zero, and most of their medical research centres in rubble. And you have eight hundred years more advances in biology than we do, so..."