The genetic code is the recipe for life, and provides the instructions for how to make proteins, generally using just 20 amino acids. But certain groups of microbes have an expanded genetic code, in ...

Despite awe-inspiring diversity, nearly every lifeform—from bacteria to blue whales—shares the same genetic code. How and when this code came about has been the subject of much scientific controversy.

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 Congo, primitive cells growing in boiling hot springs in ...

Professor of the Natural Sciences at Harvard University, Harvard University Genetic diseases can have devastating consequences for the people who inherit them. In recent years, scientists have found ...

Scientists at UC Berkeley have discovered a microbe that bends one of biology’s most sacred rules. Instead of treating a specific three-letter DNA code as a clear “stop” signal, this methane-producing ...