"The genetic code is this amazing thing in which a string of DNA or RNA containing sequences of four nucleotides is translated into protein sequences using 20 different amino acids," said Joanna Masel ...

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? "We find ...

The genetic code is central to life. With minor variations, everything uses the same sets of three DNA bases to encode the same 20 amino acids. We have discovered no major exceptions to this, leading ...

Not all parts of our genetic code are equal, even when they appear to say the same thing. Scientists have discovered that cells can detect less efficient genetic instructions and selectively silence ...

WE ARE privileged to witness a major breakthrough in biology. The reading of the first words of the genetic code was an event for which 1961 will always be remembered. Now, in the current issue of ...

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 ...

In a giant feat of genetic engineering, scientists have created bacteria that make proteins in a radically different way than all natural species do. By Carl Zimmer At the heart of all life is a code.