The same amino acid can be encoded by anywhere from one to six different strings of letters in the genetic code. Andrzej Wojcicki/Science Photo Library via Getty Images Nearly all life, from bacteria ...

Genes are the building blocks of life, and the genetic code provides the instructions for the complex processes that make organisms function. But how and why did it come to be the way it is? Subscribe ...

All living things on Earth use a version of the same genetic code. Every cell makes proteins using the same 20 amino acids. Ribosomes, the protein-making machinery within cells, read the genetic code ...

Transcription and translation are processes a cell uses to make all proteins the body needs to function from information stored in the sequence of bases in DNA. The four bases (C, A, T/U, and G in the ...

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 ...

A group of scientists at VCU Massey Comprehensive Cancer Center has revealed a new genetic code that acts like a cancer ringleader, recruiting and deploying a gang of tumor cells to incite a ...

By examining genomic variation more closely, scientists can now identify new disease connections with greater speed and accuracy. For centuries, scientists have recognized that certain illnesses can ...

Influential inventions often combine existing tools in new ways. The iPhone, for instance, amalgamated the telephone, web ...

DNA is admired for its perfection as a programmable information molecule: it uses repeating polymerization chemistry to link four nucleotide building blocks (adenine, cytosine, guanine, and thymine) ...

URBANA, Ill. – Genes are the building blocks of life, and the genetic code provides the instructions for the complex processes that make organisms function. But how and why did it come to be the way ...