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 ...

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 ...

This circular diagram represents the genetic code, showing how the four nucleotide bases of RNA (adenine [A], cytosine [C], guanine [G], and uracil [U]) form codons that specify amino acids. Each ...

Scientists have for the first time been able to build a organism containing a new, synthetic pair of DNA units, marking a breakthrough in the field of synthetic biology that has major implications for ...

(THE CONVERSATION) – Genetic diseases can have devastating consequences for the people who inherit them. In recent years, scientists have found that there are human genetic diseases that might be ...

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 beauty of the DNA code is that organisms interpret it unambiguously. Each three-letter nucleotide sequence, or codon, in a gene codes for a unique amino acid that's added to a chain of amino acids ...

One of the most remarkable characteristics of living beings is their ability to pass inherited features from one generation to the next. And one of the greatest of man’s scientific triumphs has been ...