The genetic code is the recipe for life, and provides the instructions for how to make proteins, generally using just 20 amino acids. But certain groups of microbes have an expanded genetic code, in ...

Scientists have long believed that a universal genetic code serves as a blueprint for all life on Earth, dictating the structure and function of organisms from the simplest bacteria to complex humans.

DNA contains foundational information needed to sustain life. Understanding how this information is stored and organized has been one of the greatest scientific challenges of the last century. With ...

The beauty of the DNA code is that organisms interpret it unambiguously. Each three-letter nucleotide sequence, or codon, in ...

In 1953 James Watson and Francis Crick published the molecular structure of the biological hereditary material deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) whose famous double-helical structure is now imprinted in the ...

In a groundbreaking discovery, scientists have cracked the DNA code of the longest living mammal, the bowhead whale, revealing a mechanism that could potentially prolong the human lifespan by ...

Pyrrolysine is an important component of methyltransferase enzymes, which the archaea use to metabolize methylamine in the environment. “The need for that metabolism and availability of the machinery ...

Scientists testing a new method of sequencing single cells have unexpectedly changed our understanding of the rules of genetics. The genome of a protist has revealed a seemingly unique divergence in ...

An international team of scientists mapped nearly the entire human genome for the first time two decades ago, cracking the genetic code of human life. The global effort was a massive scientific feat, ...

A new theory that explains why the language of our genes is more complex than it needs to be also suggests that the primordial soup where life began on earth was hot and not cold, as many scientists ...

The findings, which detail how amino acids shaped the genetic code of ancient microorganisms, shed light on the mystery of how life began on Earth. "You see the same amino acids in every organism, ...