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 ...
Scientists have marveled at the ingenuity of the DNA code since it was first deciphered in the early sixties, but now it appears that there is much more to it than previously known. A research team at ...
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 ...
An international team led by Monash University researchers has uncovered the genetic code governing the way genetic mutations affect mRNA and result in disease. This breakthrough, detailed in a new ...
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, ...
On a foggy Saturday morning in 1953, a tall, skinny 24-year-old man fiddled with shapes he had cut out of cardboard. They represented fragments of a DNA molecule, and young James Watson was trying to ...
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 ...
A new language has been found inside us, one that’s not written in DNA’s letters but carved into its very shape. For decades, scientists believed the essence of life was written solely in four ...