Ask a friend what DNA is and, chances are, they have a general idea. Seventy years after scientists discovered the two-stranded helix, DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) is widely understood as the keeper of ...

More than four billion years ago, Earth was a very different place. Pools of water froze and thawed in cycles, minerals shaped reactions, and molecules bumped into each other by chance. Out of this ...

RNA is one of the bodies most vital molecules, and it comes in a few forms. For example, messenger RNA fills an essential role in gene expression by copying the sequences of active genes, which are ...

RNA’s Surprising Role in DNA Repair New insights could lead to improved treatments for cancer and other diseases. Francesca Storici and her research team discovered a surprising role for RNA in DNA ...

The integrity of DNA and RNA is essential for every cell. DNA contains the genetic information for proteins, while RNA serves ...

One of the greatest mysteries of our planet is how a soup of lifeless chemicals transformed into the first living cell. There are several competing theories about where this happened, from frozen ...

A newly revealed “aging cliff” in sperm RNA marks a conserved molecular transition from youth to later life, offering fresh insight into how a father’s age may influence the earliest stages of ...

Comparison of a single-stranded RNA and a double-stranded DNA with their corresponding nucleobases. (Image: Wikimedia Commons, CC SA 3.0) The most common type of base pairing is the Watson-Crick base ...