Nearly all living organisms use the same genetic code, a complicated mechanism by which genetic information is translated into proteins, the building blocks of life. A new study suggests conventional ...

For most of the history of life on Earth, genetic information has been carried in a code that specifies just 20 amino acids. Amino acids are the building blocks of proteins, which do most of the heavy ...

Bees are, in many ways, the darlings of the insect world. Not only do they play a crucial role in thriving ecosystems, but they’re also harbingers of the worsening consequences of climate change. To ...

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.

I had been staring her in the eyes, as she had ordered, but when a doctor on my other side began jabbing me with a needle, I started to turn my head. “Don’t look at it,” the first doctor said. I ...

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 ...

FILE - A 23andMe saliva collection kit is shown on March 25, 2025, in Oakland, Calif. (AP Photo/Barbara Ortutay, File) (Barbara Ortutay, Copyright 2025 The Associated ...

For Save the Koala Day, learn how conservation geneticist Rebecca Johnson’s work helps protect these iconic marsupials Jack Tamisiea Smithsonian chief scientist Rebecca Johnson snaps a selfie with one ...

HAWTHORNE, N.Y. -- Gustavo Stolovitzky, a brash biophysicist at the IBM division conducting basic genetic research, seems an unlikely catalyst for a multimillion-dollar business investment. "Revenue, ...

Barbara Rae-Venter, a 76-year-old patent attorney living in Marina, California, thought she'd spend her retirement leisurely playing tennis, traveling, and indulging in her favorite pastime: ...

Remember 23andMe? The company that gave customers saliva-based DNA testing kits to learn about their ancestry? Founded in 2006, the company also conducted health research and drug development. But it ...