Sweetpotato, a critical food crop for millions, has finally had its genetic code fully decoded after decades of mystery.

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 ...

A new study brings scientists closer to uncovering how life began on Earth.

Earlier efforts to attach amino acids to RNA had relied on highly reactive compounds that quickly degraded in water and ...

Chemists at UCL (University College London) have shown how two of biology’s most fundamental ingredients, RNA (ribonucleic acid) and amino acids, could have spontaneously joined together at the origin ...

Did you know that many of us have up to 4% neanderthal DNA? Did you know that many of us have up to 4% neanderthal DNA? And that 100% of your DNA may come from outer space? No joke. The biochemistry ...

A new theory that explains why the language of our genes is more complex than it needs to be also suggests that the primordial soup where life began on earth was hot and not cold, as many scientists ...

The spontaneous coalescence of the molecules that led to life on primordial Earth, some 4 billion years ago, may have finally ...

Arrow worms, or chaetognaths, are strange ocean predators that have puzzled scientists for more than a century. They have transparent, torpedo-shaped bodies, sharp grasping spines near their mouths, ...