  For almost twenty years the effects of a nonzero strange quark mass on the
equation of state of cold and dense QCD were considered to be negligible,
thereby yielding only minor corrections to the mass-radius diagram of compact
stars. By computing the thermodynamic potential to first order in \alpha_s, and
including the effects of the renormalization group running of the coupling and
strange quark mass, we show that corrections can be of the order of 25%, and
dramatically affect the structure of compact stars.
