For decades, the central dogma of molecular biology—DNA makes RNA, RNA makes protein, protein makes phenotype—was the guiding framework for understanding inheritance and disease. This model explained ...

The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. For a molecule of RNA, the world is a dangerous place. Unlike DNA, which can persist for millions of years in its remarkably stable, ...

Research into how a father’s choices — such as diet, exercise, stress, nicotine use — may transfer traits to his children has ...

Researchers have discovered how cells activate a last-resort DNA repair system when severe damage strikes. When genetic ...

We’re celebrating 180 years of Scientific American. Explore our legacy of discovery and look ahead to the future. In 1957, just four years after Francis Crick and other scientists solved the riddle of ...

Scientists are consistently one-upping each other when it comes to finding the oldest molecules from fossils. The race even includes the notoriously fragile RNA. “It’s groundbreaking,” said Oliver ...

Researchers at Kyushu University have revealed how spatial distance between specific regions of DNA is linked to bursts of gene activity. Using advanced cell imaging techniques and computer modeling, ...

WASHINGTON, Nov 14 (Reuters) - Scientists have recovered the oldest-known RNA, a molecule necessary for most biological functions, from a woolly mammoth that inhabited Siberia about 39,000 years ago, ...

Oceans churned with lava. Air filled thick with smoke. Asteroids stormed down incessantly. Life during the Hadean Eon four billion years ago was a struggle, and yet that was when it began. 1,2 With no ...

The answer depends on the questions you’re trying to answer, as well as the origin, quantity, and quality of your samples. In this article, we’ll briefly discuss several RNA-seq workflows, how they ...