I am curious why they call the variation "tiny." The mutation they describe is "the deletion of two genetic letters" — since genes are read in groups of three,

I am curious why they call the variation "tiny." The mutation they describe is "the deletion of two genetic letters" — since genes are read in groups of three, a deletion of two letters results in a completely different protein after the site of the mutation (called a "frameshift" mutation because of this property). It seems as if they're trying to cast the result as somehow surprising, when it isn't (this aspect of it, at least).