We are what we are because of ancient and mysterious genetics.

The first great branching of the evolutionary tree, between bacteria and archaea, may have happened before either of them ...

In 1968, the American biochemist and geneticist Marshall Nirenberg and his colleagues won the Nobel Prize in physiology or ...

A newly discovered code within DNA -- coined 'spatial grammar' -- holds a key to understanding how gene activity is encoded in the human genome. This breakthrough finding revealed a long-postulated ...

(Alones Creative/iStock/Getty Images) One of the most iconic visual representations in biological science is the double helix ...

The function of non-coding RNA in the cell has long been a mystery to researchers. Unlike coding RNA, non-coding RNA does not produce proteins—yet it exists in large quantities. A research team from ...

OUR scalp cells sprout hair while the cells lining our nose and lungs make mucus. Our fat cells bloat, our retinal cells turn light into electricity, and our heart cells contract to order. Yet every ...

A long-overlooked stretch of the human genome appears to play a distinct role in shaping the social and stereotypic repetitive behaviors that define autism spectrum disorder (ASD), without affecting ...

Researchers have revealed that so-called ‘junk DNA’ contains powerful switches that help control brain cells linked to Alzheimer’s disease. When people picture DNA, they often imagine a set of genes ...

A newly discovered code within DNA—coined "spatial grammar"—holds a key to understanding how gene activity is encoded in the human genome. Transcription factors, the proteins that control which genes ...