Evolution settled on a genetic code that uses four letters to name 20 amino acids. Synthetic biologists adding new bases to DNA will be free to improve on nature — if they can. With recent innovations ...

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 ...

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 ...

As wildly diverse as life on Earth is—whether it’s a jaguar hunting down a deer in the Amazon, an orchid vine spiraling around a tree in the Congo, primitive cells growing in boiling hot springs in ...

The Least Likely Man: Marshall Nirenberg and the Discovery of the Genetic Code by A/Professor Franklin H Portugal of the Catholic University of America and published by MIT Press is primarily a tale ...

The genetic code is a set of rules defining how the four-letter code of DNA is translated into the 20-letter code of amino acids, which are the building blocks of proteins. The genetic code is a set ...

Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday. Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. James Joel via Flickr CC By ND 2.0 All of life on Earth speaks the ...

Millions of years of evolution gave life on earth a genetic dictionary with 64 words. Harvard University scientists thought they could do better. In an intriguing step toward lab-made organisms, they ...

Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. Recent breakthroughs in genetics research may have uncovered new genes underlying common psychiatric disorders. Schizophrenia and ...

Researchers have revealed that so-called “junk DNA” contains powerful switches that help control brain cells linked to ...

For more than 50 years, the RNA remained hidden in a lymph node that had been snipped out of a 38-year-old man in what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo. That nub of tissue, the size of a ...

It took 12 years and $3bn to sequence the human genome and figure out the code in our DNA. These days, people can post off a blood sample and get information on their genetic inheritance for as little ...