On May 27, 1961, Heinrich Matthaei, a postdoc working with NIH scientist Marshal Nirenberg, placed synthetic polyuracil RNA into 20 test tubes to see what it would produce. Each tube contained ...

Genes are the building blocks of life, and the genetic code provides the instructions for the complex processes that make ...

Orangutans, mice, and horses are covered with it, but humans aren't. Why we have significantly less body hair than most other mammals has long remained a mystery. But a first-of-its-kind comparison of ...

The genetics of a marine protozoan may overturn one of the long-held tenets of protein synthesis. According to conventional wisdom, the genetic code is unambiguous: each DNA triplet, or codon, ...

Researchers reconstructed the genetic code of E. coli bacteria from an Italian nobleman who died in 1586. E. coli is commonly found in human and animal intestines, but certain strains can make people ...

The DNA of nearly all life on Earth contains many redundancies, and scientists have long wondered whether these redundancies served a purpose or if they were just leftovers from evolutionary processes ...

Despite awe-inspiring diversity, nearly every lifeform—from bacteria to blue whales—shares the same genetic code. How and when this code came about has been the subject of much scientific controversy.

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Colossal and the Vertebrate Genomes Project (VGP) embark on the world’s first effort to obtain the genetic code of the existing elephant lineage, of which all three species ...