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 ...

Long known as a messenger within cells, RNA is increasingly seen as life’s molecular communication system — even between organisms widely separated by evolution. For a molecule of RNA, the world is a ...

With the long-term goal of creating living cells from non-living components, scientists in the field of synthetic biology work with RNA origami. This tool uses the multifunctionality of the natural ...

How does a cell know when it’s been damaged? A molecular alarm, set off by mutated RNA and colliding ribosomes, signals danger. When the sun shines on your skin, what does it hit? When it causes a ...

Some 39,000 years ago, a woolly mammoth died in present-day Siberia, destined to be blanketed by ice and permafrost that would end up preserving its body — even down to the hair and muscle. Now, that ...

An innovative three-color method for capturing images of mRNA inside live mammalian cells has been developed by UMass Amherst chemists. Because RNA is both incredibly important to human life and ...